


The Once and Future Monster

by humanities_angstiest



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blood and Violence, Child Eren Yeager, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eren Is a Little Shit, Eren can’t get a break, Gang Violence, Gen, Gender-Neutral Hange Zoë, Grisha Yeager's Bad Parenting, High School Student Eren Yeager, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) is a Softie, Levi Loves Eren, Like a Brother, Manga Spoilers, Platonic Levi & Eren Yeager, Protective Annie Leonhart, Reincarnation, Season 2 spoilers, Self-Harm, Torture, i don’t think there are any manga spoilers beyond season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-05-26 16:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 34,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6248032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/humanities_angstiest/pseuds/humanities_angstiest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world without titans, Levi babysits Eren, taking care of him in place of Eren's parents just like Levi did in their past lives. But then Levi leaves for college. History has a way of repeating itself, even in reincarnated lives, but this time Levi isn’t around when Eren needs his guidance most.</p><p>*That summary is vague af because it was for this fic when it was a one-shot. The new summary would mention that Eren is a badass gang member and Levi misses the sweet boy he once knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Five Years Ago**

“Don’t go,” the small boy wailed, hands fisted tightly around the fabric of the older boy’s sweatshirt.

The elder sighed, a sound of patience with traces of shared sadness, as he gently wrapped his hands around the younger’s and pulled them off. When the hands were no longer wrinkling his sweatshirt, he continued to hold them softly within his own.

“I have to if I want to get a good enough job to support myself. It’s a shitty system, but that’s life.”

The boy shook his head, messy brown locks swinging across his forehead. “You don’t need a job. You can live with me and my family. Mom will make that pasta you like and you can sleep in my bed. I promise I won’t kick you in my sleep and I don’t snore. Please don’t go, Levi…”

Levi didn’t know how else to explain why he was leaving for college to this eleven year old boy he had been babysitting for the past four years.

“Eren…” Levi opened his mouth to say his final farewell but before he had a chance, the little brat kicked him in the shin before wrapping his small arms around Levi’s waist in a suffocating hug.

The kid had taken off running immediately after, not stopping until he was back home.

The boy slammed the front door behind him and slid down to the floor. His mother had known this day was coming and knew nothing she said could heal the hurt, so she continued to prepare dinner as wet lines traced down plump cheeks.

 

**Present**

Levi scowled at the nuisance on his left. His mood wasn’t agreeable on the best of days, but could only worsen after the long-ass car ride he just endured driving from his university in Indiana to his home in Connecticut. Twelve hours in a car was painful enough, but it felt much longer with the freak’s incessant babble on extraterrestrial life. Levi made it clear that he had zero fucks to give about conspiracy theories, but this in no way deterred Hange from telling him all about them anyway.

Going back to his hometown wasn’t helping matters either. Not that he had a valid reason to dislike Fairview. He grew up in a friendly neighborhood filled with block parties in the summer and snowman building competitions in the winter. However, he experienced freedom when he went away to college, and moving back home to save money while he searched for a job was unappealing. His mom was pretty cool, he could admit, but she still enjoyed sticking her nose into his business and giving her two cents on his life choices. Luckily, (or unluckily depending on how you looked at it) Hange was moving back home too.

“…claiming that the aliens were making human-cow-lizard chimeras. But why cows? I mean lizard-humans is pretty cool, but a cow’s anatomy…”

Levi tuned in and out of whatever Hange was talking about as they refueled at a gas station twenty minutes from Fairview’s town limits.

He hadn’t been back home in almost five years. There was never a reason. He had internships and jobs in the city during breaks, and holidays were celebrated at his uncle’s house in Michigan.

He would see his mother at these gatherings or when she drove up to get lunch with him if her shifts at the hospital allowed her a long weekend.

Living in a big city and attending college, this small town fell to the back of his mind. He hadn’t given it much thought in the past five years. When he did think back, a pair of bright green eyes instantly sprung to memory. Although many things about this town he quickly forgot, he never forgot the boy he used to babysit.

Eren Jaeger.

A cheeky brat with an easy smile who made flower crowns for himself and Levi every spring, even though his mother always yelled at him for ruining her garden. The kid’s parents were both in the medical field, his father being a doctor and his mother a nurse just like Levi’s mom, which is how Levi ended up as the brat’s babysitter.

Being six years older, Levi was charged with watching Eren and making him dinner when his parents were working late, which happened quite frequently. Levi started babysitting Eren when the kid was eight and he quickly regarded him as a little brother. It wasn’t hard, with Eren blatantly looking up to him and wanting to do everything that he did.

The one thing Levi regretted about never returning home while he was in college was that he missed seeing Eren grow up. Eren would be sixteen now and a sophomore in high school. It was a weird thought. In his mind, Eren was still a hyperactive middle schooler with cherry popsicle stained lips who enjoyed listening to Levi tell him stories about brave soldiers fighting against titans to save humanity.

 

**Seven Years Ago**

Levi sat in the living room of the Jaeger’s home, trying to get some homework done. Eren had bathed and went to bed an hour ago. The house was silent, the only noise being the rain pattering on the windowsills and the occasional clap of thunder. It was after a particularly loud clap of thunder that a scream cut through the silent house. Levi almost dropped the mug of tea he held in his hand. He set it down carefully before quickly moving to Eren’s room.

“Eren?”

He poked his head through the crack in the door and saw Eren sitting up in bed, eyes wide with fear and hands clutching the blankets around him, covering half of his face.

Levi moved cautiously so he wouldn’t startle Eren, who didn’t give any indication that he was aware of Levi’s presence.

“Eren? Are you okay?” he tried again. He sat down on the edge of the boy’s bed and waited for a response.

There were tears running down the boy’s face and Levi wiped his shirt sleeves across Eren’s cheeks to dry them.

“Did you have a bad dream?”

A slow head nod. “I don’t remember what it was about.”

Levi just nodded back. He was terrible at comforting people. He had no clue what he should say. After sitting in silence for a few minutes while Eren’s heartbeat slowed, Levi moved to stand and leave so Eren could fall back asleep.

A hand reached out for his and pulled him back.

Tentatively, as if he feared being ridiculed for what some would call a childish request, Eren asked Levi to stay with him and tell him a story.

Levi almost refused on principle. He was not the type of high schooler who babysat little brats to begin with. He definitely wasn’t the type of babysitter to hold hands and tell bedtime stories.

But he had been babysitting Eren for a year by this point and the little brat had him wrapped around his finger with those big green eyes. Which were currently glassy with tears.

“Do you have a story book?”

Eren smiled, knowing that Levi was agreeing to tell him a story, and shook his head back and forth enthusiastically.

“I want you to make up a story,” the boy cheered.

Of course. It couldn’t be as simple as reading from a book, he had to use “imagination”. Fuck this shit, he wasn’t doing it.

Green eyes stared at him expectantly.

Fuck it, he was doing it.

 

**Present**

Levi remembered that night. It was the start of a tradition. Every time Eren had a nightmare, Levi would tell him another part of the story about the Scouting Legion soldiers who fought the monsters outside the walls. The stories had always been in the back of his mind, but it wasn’t until he turned eighteen that the stories became memories. Erwin already knew, being older than him. A few months later, Hange’s memories returned too.

It was a shock to realize the kids he grew up with were fellow soldiers fighting a bloody battle in a past life. Even more shocking were his memories of the young trainee who hero-worshipped him. In that life too, Levi was a parental figure for Eren. Some things didn’t change, he guessed.

He tried not to think too much on those old days. This was his life now, and he wouldn’t let the past color it too much, especially when everyone younger than him couldn’t remember yet.

Things were different this time around anyway. Eren never had a sister Mikasa or a friend Armin. If those two were reincarnated into this life, they were elsewhere in the world.

Levi started babysitting Eren in the evenings, when his parents were most worried about him being alone, but it wasn’t long before the boys spent time together even when Eren’s parents were home.

Levi taught Eren how to throw a football, how to rollerblade, and how to play poker. In return, Eren pulled smiles from Levi as if he were plucking cotton candy. Eren’s optimistic disposition cheered Levi up whenever the stress of an upcoming lacrosse game or acing an exam weighed him down. They were good for each other, Mrs. Jaeger always said.

Levi would even spend summer days at the Jaeger’s home and he met a few of Eren’s friends. There was a bald kid who reminded Levi of the avatar and a goofy, excitable girl. There was also a freckle-faced boy and another kid who Eren fought with occasionally. A good group of friends. Levi wondered how their sophomore year of high school was going. Maybe he would run into them while he was home. Fairview was a small town, after all.

He pictured himself at the local Target, throwing clorox wipes into his red basket when a lanky kid who isn’t paying attention to his surroundings knocks into him. The kid apologizes and hands Levi the contents that fell from his basket and when green eyes meet grey-blue, the kid smiles widely and hugs him, talking a mile a minute about how long it has been and asking what Levi is doing back in town, how long he’ll be around, whether he is free to marathon some geeky TV show with him just like the old days.

“Leeeviiiii! You’re smiling! What are you thinking about?” Hange’s high-pitched voice excitedly crowed in his face.

Levi ignored them and returned to the passenger seat of the car, leaving Hange to finish filling the tank by themself. Not a minute later, they slide  behind the wheel and soon they are passing the “Welcome to Fairview” border sign.

Hange dropped him off at his old house, and with a farewell wave and a comment about going job hunting tomorrow, they drove off.

His mother waits in the doorway to greet him and he kissed her on the cheek before carrying his bags to his room. Hange and him left Sina later than planned because _someone_ waited until this morning to pack, so dinner was already on the table.

Kuchel Ackerman filled him in on all the town’s gossip over dinner. Mr. Hannes was still a drunk mailman and kept giving them the Brzsenka’s mail. Minister Nick who also worked for a realty company still came by every Sunday, trying to convince people to move to a gated community. It sounded like nothing had changed in the past five years.

“How are the Jaegers?” he asked, curious that his mother hadn’t mentioned how their family friends were doing.

Kuchel lowered her wine glass. Her mouth pursed as she fought to find the words she wanted to say.

“I’m sorry to tell you this Levi, but Carla Jaeger passed away four years ago. It was a robbery gone wrong. They didn’t think anyone was home and when Carla appeared, one of the burglars shot on instinct.”

“ _Four_ years ago? Why am I only finding this out now?!” He tried to contain his anger, since it wasn’t his mother’s fault for choosing not to spend the short visits they’ve had during his college years talking about dreadful things.

But he was upset. He missed the funeral and the chance to pay his respects. Carla was a good woman and almost like an aunt to him. She and his mother went on long walks on Sunday afternoons while Levi helped Eren with his homework.

Eren.

Shit.

“How did Eren take it?”

Kuchel’s frown worsened. “I thought of telling you, but it never seemed like the right time to bring it up. You were busy studying for finals or about to start an internship and I didn’t want the news to distract you.”

“And Eren?” he repeated, slightly panicked.

“I don’t know, honey. Dr. Jaeger started traveling for work so I rarely had the chance to ask him. I saw Eren around town a few times and he looked sad, but he was with friends who could cheer him up.”

Levi stood up from the dinner table and went to his room without a word, his dinner plate still half full.

***

It was Tuesday. Hange wanted to apply to jobs but Levi had to reschedule. When Hange asked what he had to do, he simply said “Eren.”

(Ha ha, he had to “do” Eren. Didn’t mean it like that but now it’s there and I’m not changing the sentence. Sorry for disrupting the flow of your reading but I couldn’t resist pointing that out.)

He baked some berry chocolate-chip scones, a recipe of his mother’s that Eren always loved.

He didn’t know whether Eren would be home, it now being 4 PM. Maybe Eren joined a sports team in high school. He always had a lot of energy as a kid.

 

**Six Years Ago**

“Levi! I bet I can beat you to the playground,” ten-year-old Eren boasted to his sixteen-year-old babysitter.

“Oh really, brat?”

It was a nice afternoon in April and Eren had been cooped up all day in school while the sun shined warmly outside. He had to go straight home and do his homework, but now his parents were at work and Levi was here.

“Have you finished your homework?”

The young boy groaned and threw his papers around the room, exclaiming, “I’m tired of doing homework, Levi. I need a break.” He rose from his seat at the kitchen table only to collapse on the living room couch. “If not, I’ll die from boredom.”

Levi watched the theatrics, unimpressed.

“You only have a few worksheets left. Finish them and I’ll consider taking you to the park.” He thought it was a reasonable, and very babysitter-ish compromise.

Eren thought otherwise. “It will be dark by the time I finish all this. The teachers are so mean, Levi. How am I supposed to do all of this in one night?”

Levi was tired of Eren’s whining, but the kid was right. The homework he had to do for tomorrow was more than Levi had to do, and he was in high school.

“Spend another thirty minutes on homework and then we’ll go.”

“That’s too long. Let’s go now.”

“Fine. 15 minutes.”

“Now.”

“Eren,” he said in a warning tone.

“Levi,” the boy responded in the same tone.

“Don’t sass me, brat. We can not go at all, and you can stay inside all night doing homework.”

Eren lifted himself off the couch and kneeled in front of Levi, wearing his best puppy-dog eyes.

“Please, Levi. I’ll do it later. I promise. Let’s go play at the playground now.”

Levi tried to glare Eren into submission, but after two years of being babysat by the intimidating male, Eren was now immune to all of Levi’s scary faces. Sadly, Levi never became immune to Eren’s puppy-dog eyes.

“Whatever, brat. Put your shoes and coat on. And we come back when I say so, no complaining.”

“Deal!” The boy whooped, hugging Levi quickly before putting his articles of clothing on as Levi instructed. Levi shook his head, silently berating himself for his weakness to Eren’s damn eyes.

Levi locked the front door behind them while Eren jumped from foot to foot, waiting impatiently.

“Last one to the swings has to cook dinner!” Eren yelled before sprinting as fast as he could down the street towards the park.

Levi scowled. He didn’t feel like running and getting sweaty, but he couldn’t let Eren run off ahead of him. There was a street they had to cross up ahead and although it was a backroad that was rarely driven on, Levi didn’t want to explain to Mr. and Mrs. Jaeger why Eren was in the hospital with broken bones after getting hit by a car.

He sprinted after the boy and caught up easily, being older and in shape from playing on the lacrosse team at school. Eren looked over his shoulder once and his face morphed into one of steely determination when he saw how close Levi was behind him.

Levi wasn’t the type to let brats win, but it would be worth it to see Eren’s victorious smile. Not to mention, the loser had to cook dinner and Levi didn’t want Eren to cook and burn down the house. He enjoyed cooking dinner for the brat anyway, since the kid was easily impressed by whatever Levi prepared if it didn’t involve a microwave.

He slowed his pace, but forced himself to look determined so Eren wouldn’t realize he wasn’t giving his best effort.

Eren touched the swing-set a few seconds before Levi. They stood still, catching their breath, and when Levi looked over, Eren was giving him a mega-watt smile.

“I beat you! You have to cook dinner,” Eren gloated.

“Whatever, brat.”

Eren looked like he wanted to say something, but just then a voice called out to him, inviting him to play frisbee. It was that freckle-faced kid, standing beside the long faced kid.

Eren turned to Levi and waited. It took a few seconds, but eventually Levi realized what he was waiting for.

“Go play so we can return home already. I’ll wait here.”

Eren flashed another smile before running towards his two friends. Levi watched them pass the frisbee back and forth. At one point, the long faced kid said something with a smug smile on his face which angered Eren. His little hands clenched at his sides and he yelled something back which caused his friend’s smug smile to drop, replaced instead with a scowl to match Eren’s. Levi was ready to intervene but the freckle-faced kid broke up the would-be fight first. A few minutes later, Eren returned to the swing sets.

He didn’t say anything, eyebrows furrowed in deep thought.

Levi let him be, and they swayed on their swings in silence as the sky turned pink. It would be dark soon, so they wordlessly stood up and walked back to Eren’s house.

When they got back, they kicked off their shoes and Levi moved to the kitchen to start dinner. He was boiling water for pasta when Eren sidled up to him.

“You don’t need to make dinner, Levi. I know you let me win.”

Levi’s face didn’t reveal any change in emotion, but he was genuinely shocked that Eren noticed. That smile Eren flashed him when he thought he won was nice, but now Eren was clasping his hands behind his back and staring at his socked feet, feeling bad that Levi was cooking dinner when he shouldn’t have to, even though Levi always cooked dinner for Eren.

Knowing Eren would understand what he didn’t know how to say, he ruffled Eren’s hair and told him to set the table. Eren’s somber expression brightened and he moved quickly to follow Levi’s orders.

After dinner while Levi washed, dried, and put away the dishes, Eren finished his homework. His parents weren’t supposed to be home until late, so they sat in the living room to play Mario Kart. Levi didn’t let Eren win this time.

 

**Present**

He rang the doorbell thrice with no response and then knocked a few times before deciding no one was home. He turned around, planning to stop by another time with the scones, but at that moment the wooden door swung open.

Levi stared at the person standing in the open doorway. It was a muscular male whose broad shoulders almost spanned the entire door frame. Levi knew a person could change a lot in five years, but this blond haired, strong-jawed male was definitely not Eren. Especially since this youth’s eyes were brown and not luminescent green.

“Does Eren Jaeger live here?” Maybe the Jaeger’s moved away after Carla’s death. That train of thought dissipated with the answer to his question.

“He does. Who are you?” The blonde was using his musculature to try and intimidate him, crossing his biceps over his chest, but it wasn’t effective on Levi.

Levi wasn’t the type to be browbeaten. He stood solidly on the Jaeger’s front step, holding his plate of scones in one hand and cocking his hip outward in a display of indifference to the other male’s threatening posture.

Realizing he had no choice but to cooperate if he wanted to speak with Eren, he replied, “I’m an old friend who’s been out of town for a few years. I brought scones for him.”

The blonde weighed Levi’s words carefully and studied his face, but must have found whatever he was looking for because he relaxed, dropping his serious expression and crossed arms.

“Sorry man, can’t be too careful.” He chuckled nervously as Levi continued to stand there, now confused and suspicious.

“Anyway, Eren isn’t available right now. I can give him the scones and take a message if you want?”

“Who are you?” Levi asked, remembering that he never caught the other male’s name.

“Ah, I’m Reiner. I’m a friend of Eren’s too.”

“What do you mean Eren isn’t available? Is he here?”

Reiner shuffled from foot to foot. “Well, yeah, he’s here. He isn’t able to see anyone right now though.”

“What the fuck do you mean by that? Tell him Levi is here.” Levi felt stupid doing a name-drop. He questioned whether he meant much to Eren now. After all, he was just the kid’s babysitter and Eren wasn’t a child anymore who was easily excited to hang out with a “big kid”.

A sickening thought took root in Levi’s mind, that Eren wouldn’t react positively to seeing him. After all, he never kept in contact with Eren after he went to college and never gave his condolences or was there to support Eren after his mother’s death.

“Listen, man. It doesn’t matter who you are. Eren can’t talk right now. Do you want to leave a message or not?”

A sound like breaking glass filtered through the closed door to Eren’s room, which Levi was just able to see past the bulky teen blocking the door. A manic laugh followed.

Reiner winced. “I need to go. Try again tomorrow afternoon.” Before Levi had a chance to reply, the door was shut and locked in his face.

He pressed his ear to the door and was barely able to hear Reiner knocking on Eren’s bedroom door, asking him if he was okay and if he could open the door.

It was bizarre. Having no other choice but to try again another time, Levi got back in his car and drove home. Not feeling like sitting at home with his mom, he called up Hange to see if she wanted to hang out.

An hour later, Hange and him pulled into the town’s only video rental store. The store wasn’t crowded, only a few other shoppers besides themselves. They decided to split up, Hange browsing the horror movie section while Levi explored the foreign films section.

“Holy shit, you’re Levi.” Levi’s head snapped up upon hearing his name, and he noticed two boys at the end of the aisle staring at him. One had dark hair and a shit ton of freckles while the long faced one sported a strange two-toned hairstyle. Puberty hit them since the last time Levi was in town, but he recognized Eren’s friends. Marco and Jean, was it?

When Levi’s expressionless gaze connected with the two-toned boy’s, his cheeks reddened, not having meant to be heard.

“You two are friends of Eren’s, right?”

The two shared a look that Levi couldn’t decipher.

“Uh, yeah, when we were younger,” Jean mumbled.

Levi nodded, processing these words. “Did you get in a fight or something?” Knowing Jean and Eren’s history, it was the most likely cause of their apparent falling out.

“I guess you could say that.” Jean rubbed the back of his neck. His buddy Marco looked uncomfortable. “Do you know…” He looked away and swore before facing Levi again. “Have you seen Eren since you left for college?”

“No. This is my first time being home since then. Why?” The way these two were acting made him raise his guard. He sensed something wasn’t right, but he had no idea what.

Marco stepped forward with sad, innocent eyes. “I’m sorry if it’s not my place, but I think it would be best if you didn’t try to see Eren while you’re home.”

“Best for who? And it’s too late, I already visited Eren’s house earlier today.”

The two boys stared at him with a mix of sympathy and disbelief.

“You saw Eren?”

Levi’s jaw twitched. “No, some guy named Reiner was playing guard dog. Whatever the fuck that was about.”

Marco stepped behind Jean a little at the mention of Reiner. “You really should stay away from them. Eren was my friend once, and I’m sure he would prefer that your memories of him don’t change.”

Before Levi could demand answers from the two skittish and vague teens, Hange bounced down the aisle towards him and in their entrance, the two young males departed.

“Did you choose a movie yet, buttercup?” Levi glowered at the nickname, but his mind was still spinning around the words Eren’s childhood friends had uttered. He blindly picked a movie and proceeded to the checkout with Hange.

Back at Hange’s house, they sat down to watch _The Silence of the Lambs_. Levi had accidentally grabbed a French porn and although Hange was down to watch it together, Levi was not.

It had been a long time since he last saw this movie. Actually, he last watched it with Eren.

 

**Five Years Ago**

“Eep!” Eren squealed as he dove under the blanket and huddled close into Levi’s side.

“Eren, if you’re going to scream at every little thing, then go to bed. You’re too young to be watching a horror movie anyway.”

Eren’s face peeked out of the blanket. “No! I can watch it if you can.”

Levi shrugged, figuring it would be less exhausting to handle Eren after a nightmare than to argue with him over watching the movie.

Eren remained relatively quiet for the rest of the movie, although he clutched Levi’s arm so tightly there were sure to be bruises tomorrow.

Levi popped the disc from the DVD player and returned it to the Jaeger’s movie bin. Eren still sat on the couch wrapped in his blanket, staring at the black screen.

“Eating people is gross. Why would the man do that?”

“People are gross.”

Eren contemplated Levi’s words. Levi hadn’t answered his question the way he wanted, but the answer he was given made sense too.

“Why would the good guys team up with a monster?”

Levi gave this question more consideration.

“Sometimes…you need to work alongside evil to take down evil. And who the bad guys are depends on which side you are on. Hannibal might view the “good guys” as bad people because they were keeping him locked up.”

“That would stink, being locked in a room for the rest of your life. I would hate that. It’s bad enough when mom grounds me for a week.”

“If you stop misbehaving then she won’t ground you, brat. Now get in bed. If you have a nightmare, don’t waste your breath calling for me because it was your choice to watch a scary movie.”

Eren stuck his tongue out but did as Levi said. One of the things Levi was thankful for was that despite Eren getting older and becoming friends with Levi, he still respected Levi’s authority and did as he was told. Levi turned off Eren’s bedroom lights when the kid was under his blankets.

He sat in the living room, watching episodes of Spongebob Squarepants to distract his mind. Not even two hours later, he heard an ear-splitting shriek unlike any he had ever heard, followed by whimpering noises. Even though he told Eren not to call for him, he didn’t mean it. He was already out of his seat and making his way to Eren’s room when a small voice called out, “Levi?”.

“No more scary movies for you then,” he joked. Eren didn’t look at him. His fists gripped his blankets with white knuckles and his head hung low so Levi couldn’t see his face.

“Eren?” He called out gently. He sat down on the boy’s bed and waited for Eren to look at him but the boy didn’t raise his head. Levi lifted Eren’s chin with his finger and turned it to see the boy’s face.

It was unlike every other time Eren had a nightmare. Tonight, Eren’s eyes were dull and haunted, as if he were trapped in his nightmare still.

“Hey Eren, it was just a bad dream. You’re okay now,” Levi comforted. He rubbed small, soothing circles on Eren’s back, hoping Eren would relax. The boy was coiled as tight as a spring.

Eren opened his mouth to speak but began hyperventilating instead. Levi continued to rub his back while Eren drew shaky breaths. When he was calmer, he stared directly into Levi’s eyes with the most miserable expression.

“Levi…I…I killed him. It was me. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know what was happening but I…” Eren’s small frame began shaking.

“Shh, Eren. It was a dream. You didn’t kill anyone.” He started to wrap his arms around Eren but the boy violently shoved him away.

“No! I killed him! I…I remember what it felt like when I…when I bit into him…what it tasted like…” Eren’s eyes grew wide and he quickly stumbled out of bed and ran to the bathroom. When Levi arrived, Eren was already bent over the toilet, retching into it.

“Tch, disgusting.” That’s what he said, but he took his place behind Eren and continued to rub his back soothingly. He felt bad for giving in to Eren’s pleas to watch the movie. He was Eren’s babysitter and had to act more responsible.

Levi contemplated bringing Eren to a doctor. He was incredibly pale and his entire body was shaking like a blade of grass in a windstorm, covered in a thin layer of sweat. His eyes were dark and tormented.

After his stomach was completely emptied, the boy was exhausted. He rested his head on the toilet seat and started to close his eyes.

“Come on, Eren. Let’s clean you up and get you back in bed.” The boy made no sign of moving, so Levi wet a washcloth and wiped the boy’s face of sweat and vomit. He put some toothpaste on a toothbrush but Eren wasn’t able to hold it tightly, so Levi brushed the boy’s teeth for him. Eren’s eyes were unfocused on the wall behind Levi the entire time.

Once Levi finished cleaning Eren up, he lifted the boy bridal style in his arms, knowing it would be easier than getting Eren to stand on his shaking legs and walk himself. The boy turned his head into Levi’s chest and dozed off, his nightmare and the aftermath draining him.

Levi tucked him back into bed, but instead of returning to the living room to watch TV, he sat on the bean bag in the corner of Eren’s room and watched the boy sleep, ready for anything. He had never seen Eren react so harshly to a bad dream before and it worried him.

***

Small hands patted him on the cheeks, one pat on the left and one pat on the right, again and again until he opened his eyes.

“Morning, Levi!” Eren crouched in front of him, bright smile and bright eyes.

It was indeed morning. Light shined through Eren’s window. Levi stretched, feeling the soreness in his body from sleeping in the bean bag all night.

“Eren? How are you feeling?” Levi examined the boy’s face carefully, looking for the signs of distress that were displayed last night, but found nothing.

“Huh? I’m fine. Why?” Eren tilted his head to the side, squinting at Levi as if he was the one who might be feeling unwell.

Levi figured Eren had been too scared last night to process anything. All that mattered was that Eren was feeling better, and if he forgot his nightmare, all the better.

Mrs. Jaeger was in the kitchen and turned at the sound of the two boys entering.

“Morning, boys. Levi, I hope your back doesn’t hurt too bad from sleeping on that old bean bag. If Eren forced you to sleep in there because he had another bad dream…”

“No, it was my choice, Mrs. Jaeger,” Levi cut in. Eren smiled up at him. They ate breakfast together before Levi walked the two blocks to his house to get more rest.

  
**Present**

Hange and Levi spent the day in the city, walking into any businesses that interested them to inquire about employment opportunities. They each had gotten a few forms to fill out before deciding to split up. Hange wanted to do some shopping and Levi wanted to rest after walking around all day. They agreed to meet at a bar in the shitty part of the city in two hours to get some dinner and cheap drinks.

After resting in a quaint café, Levi began to wander the streets looking for the bar Hange told him to meet at.

The sky was a reddish-orange hue and the night was warm. It was a silent, pleasant walk despite the grungy looking shops he kept passing. He wondered if he had wandered too far into shitty territory. His suspicions were confirmed when he heard a scream, some sobs, and a sound like a body hitting the pavement.

Levi could handle himself in a fight, and knowing he couldn’t ignore an alley brawl in good conscious without checking to make sure the poor sucker wasn’t getting beaten too bad, he turned towards the alley where he heard the noise coming from.

The alley was dirty and dark, the perfect place for illegal activities to occur.

A man with a bloody nose who looked a little older than Levi was curled in the fetal position on the ground. Standing above him, features hidden by the shadows, was another male.

When the man on the ground spotted Levi, he widened his eyes and shook his head slightly, a warning for Levi not to come closer.

Levi ignored the warning. “What’s happening here?”

“Run, man. Just go and don’t get involved. He’s a monster.”

Before the man could say something else, a foot kicked him in the head. “That’s not a nice thing to say,” the other man chided. He laughed as his foot continued to kick the guy on the ground.

“Stop.” Levi hoped his voice sounded strong and commanding, but even he was shaken that the other male hadn’t run off after he approached. He didn’t seem to care that there was a witness to this assault.

The other male halted his kicks and turned his attention to Levi briefly. “I don’t think I will. This shithead tried to steal some product and thought I wouldn’t notice.”

“You’re a drug dealer.” Of fucking course Levi couldn’t get involved in a simple brawl, he had to interrupt a drug deal gone wrong.

Levi tried to peer closer at the man’s features, but it was too hard to see while the man stood in the shadows.

The man nonchalantly pulled a bag of powder from his jacket pocket and held it up for Levi to see. “That’s one of my professions. Just tested this batch out a few days ago, so I know it’s good. If you’re interested, it’s $260 for an ounce or $800 for a Q.P.”

Was this guy real? Levi had just witnessed him assault a man and now the guy was offering to sell him drugs.

“Not interested.”

The dealer shrugged and put the bag away. A groan came from the man on the ground, recapturing the dealer’s attention.

“Ah, almost forgot about you.” The dealer moved forward a step and pulled a knife from his back pocket, twirling it between his fingers as if it were a pen and not a sharp blade.

The dealer pulled up his jacket sleeve and quickly sliced his forearm with the knife. Levi inhaled sharply, not expecting that.

“Gotta make sure it’s sharp,” the dealer explained. “It’s so annoying when I have to hack longer at an ear or tongue because my knife wasn’t sharp enough.” The dealer spoke casually, as if he wasn’t talking about cutting off body parts.

The drug dealer crouched next to the guy on the ground and grabbed his hair tightly in his fist. Now that the man had stepped out of the shadows, Levi realized the man was actually a teenager. Couldn’t be older than seventeen, if that. His hair was chestnut brown and messy, falling just above his shoulders.

The teen pulled on the hair in his grasp before turning his face towards Levi, his features now illuminated by the fading light at the end of the alley behind Levi. “So, what should I cut off?”

Levi felt his breath whoosh out of him as if he were sucker-punched in the gut.

Brown hair.

Tan skin.

Those eyes. Those green eyes unlike anyone else's. No one had eyes like those, no one but

“Eren.”

The teen squinted his eyes, and tilted his head to the side, just like he did as a child when he was trying to comprehend something.

“Yeah? Wow, man. You must be brave, knowing who I am and still getting involved.”

“What…what happened to you?” The words were a whisper on his lips but were still heard by Eren, who scowled and narrowed his eyes.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Levi closed his eyes and tried to make sense of this. Eren didn’t swear, or hold knives to people or beat them or sell drugs. He thought Eren didn’t do a lot of things.

Eren was holding the knife tighter in his hand and glaring at Levi but Levi couldn’t be afraid of Eren, not even now. He stepped forward until Eren could see his features closely. Whereas Eren had been obscured in shadows, Levi had been covered in the lights last rays.

They got a close look of each other. Levi knew when Eren recognized him, because his eyes widened, giving him that big-eyed look he had as a child.

But Eren was no longer a child, evident in the way he laughed hard, wrapping his arms around himself to stop his shaking as he said, “No fucking way. Levi, my old babysitter. Fancy seeing you here. How’ve you been?”

Eren jumped to his feet from his crouched position.

“Eren…” Levi couldn’t think of anything else to say. There was so much he wanted to know, so much he didn’t understand, but at the same time he was hoping this was a really intense dream he would wake up from soon. This alley was definitely not a Target aisle and Eren was definitely not a clumsy teen if the way he twirled that knife with ease was any indication.

The man on the ground groaned and tried to get up, but Eren delivered another kick to the man’s stomach, keeping him down.

“Can’t you see we’re having a reunion here?” Eren glared at the man, before smiling brightly again when he looked back at Levi.

“Eren…I don’t understand…” Levi waved his arms at Eren, unable to articulate what he was thinking. Luckily, Eren seemed to get the gist.

“Don’t understand? What? Oh, how the little boy you knew grew up to be a drug-dealing mafia boss? It’s a funny story.” Eren laughed again, but it wasn’t the lighthearted laugh Levi remembered. It was a harsh, sarcastic sound.

“Well you see, first you leave for college. Which is fine, I understand now that I’m older why you left and I don’t hold it against you. But then my mom was murdered. You remember my mom, right? She would cook us pancakes on Saturday mornings. My dad couldn’t handle it. He threw himself into his work and was rarely home. I had the house all to myself and no parental supervision. The only person I ever had to look out for me besides my parents was you, Levi. And you know as well as I do that you never came back to Fairview once you left. You didn’t even call.”

Levi hadn’t cried in years, not since his cousin Isabel died from leukemia when they were nine. But he was close to tears now. He could see it as if he had been there. Eren crying as his mother was buried under piles of dirt. Eren sitting at home alone while his father was at work, feeling the emptiness that used to be filled by his mother coupled with the emptiness that Levi caused when he left. A silent, empty house and a lonely, sad boy. Eren standing by the phone waiting for Levi to call. Waiting for Levi to come back and visit. Waiting.

He could see Eren’s sadness being choked down by an unforgiving noose of anger. Eren searching for the men who killed his mother and ruined his life. Eren taking their lives.

It was strikingly similar to Eren’s past life, the life he didn’t yet remember. But in his past life he had Armin and Mikasa to look after him. And he had Levi to teach him he wasn’t a monster.

In this life, Eren had none of that.

Levi felt an immense amount of guilt. He wanted to protect Eren, but he had gotten caught up in trivial worries like classes and tests and getting work experience to bother thinking about the little boy he left behind. The boy he always planned to return to, but now it was too late.

That boy was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been asked by a few people to continue this one-shot and when I tried, I ended up writing 3000+ words so I figured I might as well post it. Not sure how long it will take me to update (I’m terrible at updating) but I foresee this being 4+ chapters?

**Present**

Eren pocketed the pinky finger with unmasked glee, his mind blocking the shrill cries of the man beneath him writhing in pain. Levi covered his mouth with his hand, swallowing back the bile that rose up from his stomach at the sight of the bloody nine-fingered man on the ground beneath the once-gentle Eren.

“Wait!”

Eren heard Levi call after him, but he didn’t spare the man any more of his time. It was getting late and he didn’t want to miss dinner. The sun persistently cast a few last rays of light, but it was low enough that the alley was now in full shadow. Eren used it to his advantage, melting into the darkness and running away from the bleeding man on the ground and his ex-friend, ex-babysitter. No, not running away. Running towards something. Towards his home.

The sewer grate was padlocked shut from the inside. It had taken Eren longer to collect from the thieving customer than he thought it would, and his family had already locked the base of their operations for the night. It was no matter, he would simply use the unconventional entrance.

Eren slowly stepped away from the sewer grate, careful not to slip on the muddy ground leading out of it to the trickling stream that remained of the diverted river. Eren climbed up the riverbank and followed the gravel road to the abandoned water treatment plant. The doors leading into the plant were welded shut to keep out intruders, but on the back wall was a drain pipe Eren shimmied up then jumped from to reach the balcony railing. It was a rusty balcony, the floor slightly tilted to one side, but it held under Eren's weight. Eren pulled on the doorknob of the balcony door but it didn’t turn down. Someone must have locked the door. It was probably Annie. Eren smiled at the gesture; it was a very Annie thing to do, to lock him out of the base to express that she wanted him to come home more. Pulling a thin piece of wire from his pocket, Eren fiddled it inside the doorknob until it clicked and the door handle twisted. He didn't bother locking the door behind him, no one else was crazy enough to climb the drain pipe.

The door led into what Eren always assumed was the former treatment plant boss's office. A dusty, dilapidated couch was pressed against one end of the room while a desk and swivel chair occupied the space beside the balcony door. When he had nothing better to do, Eren liked to pass hours in this room. There was a bookshelf, only a few books remaining from the previous tenant, but Eren had filled it with items he collected from customers who were late with their payments or that he found lying around the streets at night. He was usually wandering the streets at night, walking away from the nightmares that woke him. He had a particularly vivid nightmare last night. There was a young girl, he remembered, and she was frozen still not with fright but the feeling that life was no longer worth living. Eren watched as one man effortlessly held her down with a single hand, not needing to restrain her since she was not resisting. Eren hated that she had given up. Next thing he remembered was the feel of the knife in his hand pushing through the soft flesh of one of the men. 

Eren pulled the pinky finger from his pocket and placed it on the bookshelf. He felt no remorse for cutting off the thief's finger. After all, the man had wronged him first. Eren had to set an example, continually display his unwavering ruthlessness if he wanted to protect anything. The thinnest hole in his defense could let someone snatch what was precious from him.

Two knocks on the open office door captured his attention and he turned to see Annie leaning in the doorway.

"You missed dinner."

Eren grinned at his sister. She entered the room, carrying with her a tray topped with sliced bread, a bowl of thick stew, and a cup of water. She placed it on the office desk and Eren dutifully sat in the chair to eat. His sister sat on the corner of the desk, quietly keeping him company as he ate.

"What kept you out this time?"

Annie knew about his nightmares and how sometimes he needed to be outside, down by the river or in a field staring at the stars. Other times he needed to feel productive, like tonight.

"I took care of that thief. My prize is on the shelf." Annie glanced over her shoulder at the bookshelf, seeking out the newest addition.

"Your cuts are getting neater."

"I have a great teacher," Eren complimented, to which Annie's lip slightly curled upwards.

"Finish your damn dinner and get home."

Annie made to grab his tray when he was finished but Eren pulled it back, wanting to return the dishes himself and say goodbye to his family before making his way to his other home. She followed behind him like a shadow as he descended the metal staircase to the main floor and into what was once the staff lounge. Bert stood at the sink, washing dishes. Eren set his tray down, drawing Bert's attention.

"Hey, Bert."

“Hey, Eren. We weren't sure if you were stopping by tonight."

"Yeah, I got held up."

Bert nodded his head in acknowledgement. "Well, glad you came by. You headed home now?"

"Yeah. As much as I love your company, the furniture here is shit. I want to sleep in my own bed."

Bert agreed. He only slept in the treatment plant when his father returned to his grandmother's house after a failed art heist.

"Reiner and Father are in the planning room if you wanted to say goodnight to them."

Eren bobbed his head, placing his hand on Bert's shoulder as he passed by in a silent goodnight. Annie remained behind, drying the dishes Bert washed as Eren made his way down another staircase into the basement. Yellow light emanated from the long cylindrical lightbulbs periodically spaced along the low ceiling. It guided Eren to the end of the room where two men sat on beat up couch cushions around splayed papers.

The men glanced up as Eren's footsteps drew closer, the noise ricocheting off the walls.

"Eren, welcome home son."

"Hi Father."

Eren joined his father and brother on the couch, scanning the papers on the coffee table before them. One paper had a column of names with another column of prices next to it.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking who has brought in the most money this month. We believe someone has been pinching some of the earnings to keep for themselves."

"One of ours?" Eren asked, surprised, before he became angry. "After everything you've done for them, some fucker thinks he can—”

"Calm down, Eren. It's fine. We'll figure out who it was. If you're good and do as your brother says, I'll let you help with the traitor's punishment."

“What?! I thought it was my decision how to handle the traitor since I discovered someone was stealing in the first place? And besides, Eren always goes overboard."

"Fuck you, Reiner!"

"Boys, boys. Please don't fight. If you want Eren's help on your next assignment Reiner, then it's only fair you reward him by letting him take part in the punishment. Now, it's getting late. Eren, you should get home. You and Annie have school tomorrow."

Eren huffed and crossed his arms, making him look younger than his sixteen years and causing his father to laugh and ruffle his hair. Reiner couldn't help but grin at his little brother too. Eren may be a monster like the rest of them, but his appearance was deceiving. He looked like an adorable, petulant kid when he made that face. With a passing punch to Reiner's shoulder as a farewell, Eren did as his father said and made his way home.

The lights were off, so his biological father was either asleep or not home. Eren figured the latter. Grisha was rarely home. Eren unlocked the door and turned on the hall light. The light on the answering machine was blinking and Eren pressed play to hear the voicemail. It was Grisha, calling to inform him that he was offered a residential position at a hospital in Sweden that would keep him away for the next six months. Eren erased the message. As long as he could access the bank account to withdraw money when he needed something, Eren couldn't give a damn where Grisha was. He was hardly around when Eren was a child, it made no difference that he was hardly around now. The thought came unbidden to Eren's mind that Levi was more of a father to him than Grisha ever was. Levi cooked him dinner, helped him with his homework, comforted him after a nightmare, and taught him many things that a father was expected to. But just like his biological father, Levi left him too, Eren bitterly reminded himself. Just like his father, Levi was nothing to him now. He had a new family now.

 

**Past - Four Years Ago**

The winter chill stacked numbness upon his already numb body. Eren barely felt his toes and fingers, but he barely felt anything these days so what was one more lost sensation? No one knew he was wandering the cold streets at night, there was no one around to care. Eren sat on the snow covered sidewalk and mindlessly watched snowflakes fall from the dark grey sky. He let his body fall back against the ground, too tired to hold himself upright. The snowflakes fell against his closed eyelids and stung his red cheeks. The world around him was quiet.

"Woah, is he dead?"

The voices were above him. With some shock, Eren realized they were talking about him. Well, he wasn't dead yet but if they waited another hour he might be.

"What should we do?" A timid boy's voice whispered.

He heard an authoritative girl command someone to carry him and then his body was lifted into the air. He struggled to open his eyes and eventually managed to catch a fuzzy glimpse of two figures in front of him, one small and blonde, the other tall and dark-haired.

"He just opened his eyes. Hey, are you okay?"

Eren tried to respond, to tell these people not to worry about him and just leave him, but before he could he fainted from the prolonged cold exposure.

When he woke up, he was on a mattress in a dimly lit cement room.

"Are you all alone?" The dark-haired boy asked him gently.

Eren managed a feeble downward tilt of his head. Yes, he was all alone. A tear slipped from his eye and traced down his cheek.

"Of course he's not alone, he's got us," the blonde boy responded boldly, as the girl gently wiped the tear off his cheek.

"Reiner, we have to ask Father first," the taller boy reminded his friend.

"I know, but that doesn't change anything. He's our little brother, and we're going to protect him, whether he's officially part of the family or not. Say, what's your name?"

"Let him rest, Reiner. He's not strong enough yet to answer your questions. I'll watch him, so you find Father. Bert, go reheat this washcloth." The boys followed the girl's instructions. When they were gone, she turned to him. "You need to rest. Close your eyes and sleep." Eren did as he was told.

When he awoke for the second time, the three young teens were still there, but a man had joined them.

"What's your name?"

"Ere," he stopped to clear his throat and tried to make his voice project more than the wispy sound he had just managed. "Eren."

"Eren, what were you doing outside at this time of night?"

Eren attempted to shrug his shoulder, managing an awkward flop of his arm. "I didn't want to go home."

The three kids stared at him, their eyes understanding. The man knelt beside his sick bed. "Do you want to join our family, Eren?"

Eren didn't know how to respond. He didn't know these people, but they had saved him. And now they were offering him the chance to have a family again. From the way he observed the three act, they were like siblings. He had always wanted a sibling.

"Think about it. We can talk more after you're feeling better. Annie, stay with Eren and make sure he warms up. Bert, you and Reiner run to the store and get some chicken noodle soup. Here's some money." With everyone given their orders, they dispersed and it was once again Annie and Eren.

The next few days Eren was pampered. Bert made him healthy meals that would speed up his recovery, Annie kept close watch over him, wrapping him tightly in heated blankets, and Reiner entertained him with bad jokes. In a few days he felt better. His strength had returned, both in body and mind. It was with his returning mind that Eren realized he couldn't continue to live as he had been. He needed a purpose, something to fight for, someone to fight for if it wasn't himself. Annie gave him that purpose. None of them were worried about telling Eren their secrets, how the man they called their Father was a wanted criminal for selling drugs and killing people who stood in his way. Instead of scaring Eren as the news should have, it presented him with his purpose. He wanted to work alongside these people, this family, that cared for him. But first, he wanted to get revenge for the family he lost so he could put the past behind him.

Annie was stronger than she physically appeared. She could flip Reiner onto his back with ease. It was from her that Eren received most of his training. She taught him how to fight, how to wield a knife, how to watch his surroundings, how to patch up an injury. Their father taught him to fight as well, and when Eren was capable of knocking him down, he was ready.

He would always be grateful to his father for helping him find the men who killed his mother. Petty thieves living an existence not worth a twelfth of his mother's. He wanted to deal with them alone and his father gave him permission with the caveat that his siblings could wait outside in case he needed assistance. Annie, Reiner, and Bert obediently stood outside the house that the men who killed Eren’s mother were living in. The four of them had staked out the house for the past week. The house was at the end of a cul-de-sac with woods graciously spacing it apart from the other abodes, enough that the clanking of pans in one house could not be heard from inside the one next to it. During the day the men played cards, watched tv, or discussed plans on where they'd try robbing next. In the evening they almost always got piss drunk. That's why Eren went during the day.

He wanted the men to be cognizant as he killed them. He wanted them to know who was killing them and why they were being killed. He wanted them to feel every ounce of pain he would kindly give them and not have it be dulled by alcohol.

Bert was stationed at the side door, Reiner at the back, and Annie at the front in case the men tried to run. There was some initial banging, followed by silence. Then they heard screams. The three of them tensed up, ready to jump in and save Eren, but the voices they heard screaming were not Eren's, so they did as they promised and waited outside. After a half hour and no word from Eren, Bert tentatively knocked on the door. No one responded, so the three silently agreed to enter, eyes alert and ready for anything. At least they thought they were. They weren't ready to see Eren kneeling on the floor in a puddle of blood, the men's chest cavities ripped open and a knife lodged through their hearts. After the anger and high had worn off and Eren had seen what he'd done, he'd become catatonic. Bert barely managed to run to the bathroom before he vomited. Even Reiner and Annie were having trouble with the scene before them. Annie got a hold of herself first and roughly pulled Eren to his feet. He was swaying from side to side, so she wrapped his arm over her shoulders and Reiner did the same.

“It’s over, Eren. It’s done. You’ve avenged your mother.”

Bert and Annie sat with Eren in the car while Reiner ran through the house gathering anything that might have their fingerprints on it. They had all worn gloves, but in a situation like this it was better to be absolutely certain nothing was left behind.

Reiner drove them quickly back to the water treatment plant, the base of their father’s operation. Again, Annie and Reiner had to carry Eren into the building. Bert fetched their father then departed to continue upending his stomach contents into the toilet.

“Leave us,” Father instructed Reiner and Annie, who cast one last worried glance at Eren before departing.

Father sat beside Eren on the bed. “What happened?”

Eren shook his head, not wanting to remember what he had done, but Father slapped him across the cheek.

“I asked you a question. Did everything go as you wanted?”

Eren was forced to nod. Everything had gone as planned, the thieves who shot his mother died exactly as he wanted. He just didn’t know how hard it was to kill another human being.

“Don’t deny your true self. You are a monster, Eren. With more experience, this will be nothing. I’ll train you to be my protegé. I’m proud of you, son.” Father ruffled Eren’s hair before pulling the boy in for a hug. His father was proud of him. Those words ran on repeat through Eren’s mind. 

As the initial shock of his violence wore off, Eren admitted to himself that it felt right. Those men were beasts, they murdered an innocent woman. Eren had killed beasts, not humans. Scum of the earth.

“Rest, my son. Tomorrow you’ll join the knife wielding lessons I give Annie.” A final brush through his hair and Father departed as Eren tipped onto his side and curled up under the blankets, overwhelmed by the desire to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone that cares, this is probably going to be closer to 10 chapters than the initially expected 4. Building off this one-shot has been more fun than I expected. And I’m sorry for anything that is poorly worded, confusing, or rushed in this chapter. I just became impatient and wanted to post it.
> 
> As for the reincarnation aspect to the story, I should explain a little more how it works. Even though some people’s memories return at 18, it doesn’t mean they can recall everything easily, because it’s a second set of memories stored in the back of their mind like a dream they’ve half-forgotten. Some things stand out more than others. I hope that explanation makes sense and covers any potential plot holes.

“This isn’t healthy, Levi. I thought you were going to use your business degree to join some big corporation and earn enough to support your mom in her old age? You don’t even know if he’s still alive—“

“Eren’s not dead, Hange,” Levi snapped at his concerned friend, who shrank back slightly at the harsh tone before jumping back into the fight.

“I just meant that you need to consider all the possibilities. Eren isn’t the boy you remember. He’s a completely different person, and you shouldn’t change your entire life to chase after a memory.”

Was it the memory of Eren as the happy child he babysat or the determined soldier he watched over that Hange was referring to? The answer was clear to Levi. He decided when he turned eighteen, as did Hange, to let the past die and to enjoy the lives they had led up to that point. They earned it after all. But it wasn’t as if they could forget the past. Knowing it only made Levi more aware of how deserving of peace Eren was. Levi knew with certainty that he could not enjoy this liberating life he was given if Eren’s was mired in tragedy. He would do whatever it took to save Eren and give them both the life they deserved.

The issue was that he first needed to save Eren from himself, and Levi was at a loss on how to do that. He didn’t know the details for what warped Eren into the ruthless person he witnessed a year ago in that alley. Since that time, Levi enrolled in the police academy and became an officer at the Fairview Police Station, hoping it would give him access to clues for finding Eren. He worked his way up the ranks with countless late hours and his sharp thinking. Now he was working under a cop named Pete, the head of the squad covering the drug trade in Fairview and surrounding areas. 

Hange was worried about Levi, and so was his mom though she didn't know what Hange did. There were deep purple bags under his eyes from the overtime he was working. Levi knew he had to sleep at some point or he wouldn't be at his best, but every time he thought of going home for a full nights rest, he wondered if a patrol car circling the city in the early morning hours would finally catch a glimpse of Eren. That thought erased any intention of going home to sleep Levi briefly entertained.

"Don't test me, Levi. I will go to the Chief of Police and tell him you're incapable of doing your work well if you haven't slept more than four hours a night in the past few months."

"Hange," Levi growled.

"No, hate me if you want but this is for your own good. Now, this is what's going to happen. You are going to go home and sleep, take the day off tomorrow, and in the evening I am taking you out to dinner. And you better sleep instead of working on your computer. On second thought, I'm staying at your apartment to make sure."

Levi gripped his thinning hair tightly between his fingers, but then released the fragile strands. The hair falling out of his overly stressed body was an indicator itself that he wasn't taking good care of himself. He was reluctant to admit it, but Hange was right. Just for one day, he would rest. Then he would be back at work, using his renewed energy to search harder. His goal was to find Eren before the boy turned eighteen. Levi knew that Eren had some of his memories from his past life, though he didn’t know that was what they were. As a child Eren woke up screaming from what he thought were nightmares. Now Levi knew better. Those nightmares of Eren's were not the result of an overactive imagination or watching scary movies, it was a life better left forgotten. Who knew how much further Eren would spiral out of control when he learned that everything he dreamed was once real. Levi couldn’t make Eren forget the past, but he could at least be by Eren's side when the boy turned eighteen and remembered everything.

Hange was working on a theory. It was strange how their parents remembered nothing of the past. Perhaps they remembered at eighteen only to forget at a later age, like thirty. That was merely a guess; they couldn't test it until they themselves turned a certain age. Another theory was that only some people remembered the past, those who fought. Kuchel Ackerman was not a soldier, she was an average woman who lived a hard life then died an unmemorable death. Levi on the other hand spent years fighting monsters and witnessing the gruesome deaths of his comrades. Did he remember the past so he could better appreciate this future?

There was some basis to this theory. One of Hange's coworkers was a girl named Mina Carolina. She had been a soldier like them but Mina remembered nothing. Hange had prodded her with questions and dropped not-so-vague comments about titans, the Scouting Legion, and a few names from the past, all to no response but a perplexed expression and a nervous laugh as the girl edged away from her seemingly crazy coworker. This made Hange believe it wasn't only that a person had to fight titans, but maybe for an extended period of time, or experience intense tragedy, greater than the general tragedy everyone in their past faced. Whatever the conditions may be, Levi was certain that Eren would remember everything the day he turned eighteen, if not sooner from his nightmares.

"Go lie down and don't get out of that bed until this alarm goes off." Hange handed him their phone with a countdown ticking down from ten hours. Levi accepted it without complaint, knowing when to pick his battles, and fell into a dreamless sleep not a minute after he laid down, his body craving his bed for too long to play it cool when they reunited.

As they vowed, Hange was still in his apartment when he awoke. They stood with their arms crossed, showing that they meant business, and waited as Levi called out sick from work. Then they made him sit around doing nothing. If he tried to tidy up by throwing the pile of dirty laundry that had accumulated in the past few weeks into the washing machine, Hange grabbed the pile from him and pointed sternly at the couch where he was allowed to sit and read while they cleaned. In the future he would have to be better at keeping his apartment clean if he didn't want Hange and his mother to worry. It wasn't like him to let dishes pile up in the sink or allow his trash to reach the point where it was overflowing with take-out and microwaveable meal containers. When he returned from the police station after a long shift, there were a few measly hours to sleep before he returned to work, leaving no time for housework. And anyway, Levi never occupied his apartment long enough for the mess to bother him. But now that he was forced to sit here, the dust on his coffee table was making his eye twitch. If he just—

"Stop right there. You're resting. I'll wipe the table." Levi dropped the dust cloth and flopped back down onto the couch with a sigh.

"Am I allowed to do anything? Or will you even wipe my ass for me?”

Hange had noticed Levi's jitters. Where most people would love sitting around doing nothing, it put Levi on edge. He had to constantly be moving, be productive and useful. 

"Fine. You can vacuum."

Levi launched off the couch and bee-lined to his closet to grab the vacuum. Hange's eyes softened watching their best friend clean, the stress ebbing out of his body where it belonged. Together they finished tidying everything up in the sparse apartment, then it was time to shower and dress for the dinner reservations Hange made.

Levi directed a frown at his friend as the valet took Hange's keys.

"What? A little spoiling now and then is fine. And it's not like I can't afford it working for Nimra Incorporated. Did I tell you that the CEO is still a teenager? Oh, stop frowning Levi. This is a five star  _French_ restaurant, so enjoy it."

Hange stepped up to the maître d’ and gave their name.

"Right this way, Ms. Zoe."

Hange laughed as they steered Levi around tables he failed to notice as he admired the high, crown-molded ceilings, bright chandeliers dripping crystals, and murals painted on the walls. The maître d’ led them to a table for two by a window and handed them menus and a wine list before departing to greet the next couple. In the corner of the cozy room on a raised platform sat a pianist, their fingers dancing lightly atop the black and white keys to charm the ears of the patrons.

"These plates are rimmed in gold. I'm afraid to open the menu and see the prices."

"Don't worry, the menu doesn't list the prices."

Levi raised his gaze from the delicate water glass with a tangled vine stem to stare at Hange in horror.

"You could eat at restaurants like this too if you joined a great company and quit the police force."

Hange raised their hands in surrender at Levi’s sharp glare. "Fine, I won't bring it up again. Just keep it in mind. If you keep chasing the past, you won't find a happy ending."

Levi buried his nose in his menu to avoid giving a response. He couldn't stay annoyed with Hange for long, especially when they needed him to read the menu since everything was written in French. It was even easier to forgive Hange since he was ordering what he wanted with no regard to - or knowledge of - the price.

When the waitress came to take their order, Hange ordered them each a glass of champagne.

"Here's to us both being employed within a year of graduating college, to moving out of our parents' homes, and to some third thing that is equally impressive."

“To still putting up with each other after all these years."

"Hear, hear!"

They raised their glasses, but the clinking was overshadowed by laughter from a few tables over. The sound was chillingly familiar, and the next few seconds felt like they passed in slow motion - Levi turning his head, spotting Eren at a table in the corner; Eren's gaze meeting his briefly before looking away without a sign of recognition; Levi rising from his seat and walking in a crooked, hurried path to Eren's table as Hange mumbled expletives behind him and called for him to stop. He couldn't. He had been searching for Eren for over a year and now here he was in the most unexpected of places; a pricy, over-the-top French restaurant in the wealthiest district in the city. A far cry from the grimy, dangerous and rundown neighborhoods Levi had been combing through.

"Eren.” Levi froze, unable to say more as he noticed Eren’s company. Sitting with him were three other teens, a girl and two guys, and Levi recognized the female immediately, had strong memories of staring at her body encased in crystal for hours. The blonde male he recognized as the guard-dog from last year when he tried to bring Eren scones. Seeing him beside Annie and across from the tall, lanky one reminded Levi who they were: traitors to humanity.

If it was possible, the blonde had become even buffer and when Levi addressed Eren, the teen crossed his meaty arms in a threatening posture. Intimidation tactics were still his thing, Levi thought, the only thing his mind could wrap around with Eren's sudden appearance. Eren for his part refused to acknowledge him, and only did because his friends were staring curiously at Levi, the light atmosphere they had been enjoying now broken.

"Eren, thank goodness you’re alright. I need to talk to you.”

Eren lolled his head to the side, and Levi felt cold under the apathetic gaze.

"What could we possibly have to talk about, Officer?"

Eren's friends stiffened while Eren continued to appraise him calmly.

In just as calm a tone, with a hint of teasing to see what effect it would have, Levi said, "Have you been keeping tabs on me?"

Eren's lips pursed momentarily before the carefree mask was back in place. "In my line of work you tend to hear things.” Levi's jaw tightened, reminded that Eren was not a normal seventeen year old boy working part-time at Starbucks.

“Please, Eren. I’m serious, we need to talk.” Levi wasn't above groveling if he thought it would convince Eren to hear him out. It was now the middle of November. Eren's eighteenth birthday was a few short months away. Levi was running out of time and so was Eren, though he didn't know it yet.

“No, I seriously don’t think we do. Now, would you kindly leave so my family and I can get back to enjoying our meal?" There was an unfamiliar hardness in Eren's eyes, a vicious glint warning Levi that this was an order not a request. The reversal of roles, with Eren now giving Levi orders, would make Levi chuckle, but nothing about this reunion was amusing. As it was, Levi’s survival instincts told him to fear that look. Levi’s eyes quickly darted over Eren's "family" before settling on Eren again, searching for a chink in the wall the teen had built between them, a little give he could break through to reach Eren, but Levi found nothing, and that was terrifying because it meant Hange was right - Eren was no longer the same boy he once knew. Levi backed away slowly with his eyes faced forward, like he was escaping a predator. Only when Eren broke their gaze and began conversing with the three teens again did Levi turn around so he could navigate his way back to his table where Hange was crouched half-in and half-out of their seat, ready to move at a moment's notice.

They sat back down when Levi did and for once, thankfully, they didn't assault him with questions. While he was at Eren’s table, their food had arrived. Levi lifted his fork to cut his meat and Hange followed his example.

"How is your food? Levi?"

Levi jolted. Despite eating half of his boudin blanc, he could not answer the question, too consumed by his thoughts of how to separate Eren from the other teens to process the taste. If he was able to pull that off, the next thing he needed were the perfect words to convince Eren to leave his criminal life and reestablish his existence as an upstanding citizen. 

Hange lowered their voice to just above a whisper. “They’re leaving. I'll cause a distraction to give you time to talk to Eren but I’m not sure how successful it will be, so be quick.”

“Huh?”

“Go." Hange strode up to Eren's group that was exiting the restaurant and launched themself at Annie. In the resulting commotion, Levi ran in and grabbed Eren's arm, managing to drag the teen to the parking lot and then behind the restaurant where the dumpsters were for more privacy. Levi was hesitant to release Eren's arm, but knew this conversation would end before it began if he manhandled Eren.

"Eren, I know you're angry with me, but let me—“

"You're wrong."

"What?"

"You're wrong. I'm not angry anymore. I honestly do not care, Levi. You can stop beating yourself up about it and leave me alone. We are no longer a part of each other's lives and there is no reason for us to be."

“No, Eren...” If his options were Eren being angry with him and Eren not caring enough about their relationship to be angry with him, Levi immediately chose the former. “Please. Can we go somewhere to talk?” Despite evidence to the contrary, Levi still naively believed that all he needed was time alone with Eren to bring back that innocent boy. “I want to catch up. And there are things we need to eventually talk about.”

Eren stood next to the dumpster, waiting with arms crossed, so Levi took a moment to gather his thoughts and think of the right words to say, only he didn't have a moment.

"Eren."

Levi half-turned so he could see the newcomers approaching behind him while still keeping his eye on Eren in front of him.

It was them. Annie was speaking to Eren with her eyes, posture tense, but she relaxed when Eren gave an imperceptible shake of his head.

“Looks like you’re out of time. And anyway, like I said, we have nothing to talk about." Reiner and Annie moved around Levi to flank Eren and Bert stayed in place to prevent anyone from interfering if they passed by.

“No, now you're wrong. I'm serious, Eren. We need to talk.”

Eren gave a deep sigh, a dramatic sound that amused his friends, the corners of their lips twitching upwards. “You keep saying that. Fine. What is it?"

Levi scowled but although the expression could frighten burly men twice his height and make rude elderly people halt their ignorant ranting, it had no effect on Eren, just as it never had. “I need to talk to you privately."

"Whatever you tell me I'm going to tell them, so save me the trouble of repeating everything." Beside him the two blondes smirked.

The words were out of his mouth before he thought better of them. "Eren, you can't trust them."

The smirks slipped off of the blondes' faces and Eren stilled. He glared at Levi, eyes full of fury and protectiveness, protective of the people at his side. Eren stepped backwards, closer to Annie and Reiner, and Bert left his station to run up beside them.

"Eren, get away from them." He didn't mean to revert to babysitter mode, giving Eren a command and expecting him to listen, but it wasn't just that. Seeing the titan trio reminded him of their past lives, and Levi subconsciously reverted into the mindset of being Eren's trusted Captain. Levi saw a flicker of something cross Eren's face before his eyes turned to slits and before Levi could process what was happening enough to dodge, Eren flicked his wrist and a knife flew into his thigh, dropping Levi to one knee.

"Don't follow me, don't search for me, and don't ever approach me again." With the unspoken threat lingering in the air, Eren and his friends ran. Levi calculated his chances of following them with his injury but abandoned the idea, realizing it amounted to little if Eren wouldn’t hear him out. Levi didn’t remove his gaze from Eren’s retreating back. He thought he saw Eren’s head twitch to the side for an instant, like he was going to look back at Levi, but in the end he didn’t and then he and the trio were gone from view, their footsteps fading as the sound of another pair ran up behind Levi.

“Levi? Are you out here?” Hange called, followed by a horrified shout of his name when they saw the blood and the knife lodged in his leg. “Levi, oh my fuck, what happened? Hold on, let me call an ambulance. Shit, where’s my phone? This purse is too fucking deep.”

“Relax, it’s just in my leg.”

“Just in your—? Jesus christ, Levi. I’m calling an ambulance.”

“It would be faster for you to take me to the hospital in your car.” Hange frowned, not liking how calm Levi was, but they huffed out their irritation and helped Levi to his feet, steadying him as he hopped on his uninjured leg to the front of the restaurant. The valet retrieved the car in record time, wanting to remove the bleeding man from the restaurant’s proximity and prevent any unwelcome associations between the two. In the warm glow emanating from the restaurant’s entrance, Levi spotted the cut on Hange’s cheek and the beginnings of a bruise on their chin.

“I’m sorry.”

“Shut up.”

Hange buckled him into the passenger seat then grabbed a sweater in the backseat to wrap around his leg to stave off the blood loss. Despite the fabric turning red in moments, Levi appeared unconcerned. In fact, if Hange had to describe his expression in one word, it would be tranquil.

Though it perplexed them, Levi’s calm kept Hange calm and they drove without too much anxiety to the hospital. One of the nurses recognized Levi from a previous injury he received working in the field and she led them to a room where a doctor immediately cleaned, stitched, and wrapped the wound. Levi turned down the pain medication offered, claiming the stitches he needed for his fucking stab wound didn’t hurt.

Hange held off on their questions until they were seated in Levi’s living room. Levi sighed, giving Hange the go-ahead to pester him with their questions, impressed and grateful they waited this long.

“What happened?”

“I tried talking to Eren but then his friends showed up. I managed to warn him to stay away from them, but he ran off with them anyway.”

“And your wound? Was it that Annie bitch?"

“No, Eren did this.”

Levi gave Hange credit for not saying “I told you so” and continuing their efforts to persuade him to let Eren go. Hange bit their lip to suppress those words, but then a thought crossed their mind that brightened their expression. “Now you can quit the police force and join me at Nimra Incorporated.”

Levi angled himself towards Hange as best he could with his wound. “What are you talking about? I have to stay in the police force to help Eren.”

Hange’s jaw dropped before they snapped their teeth together, gritting out, “He threw a fucking knife at you, Levi. When will you realize he isn’t the same kid you babysat?”

“No, that kid is still in there. I thought he wasn’t for a moment, back when I approached his table at dinner. But this proves it.” Levi pointed at his bandaged leg.

“How the fuck does that prove it?!” Hange screeched. Had Levi gone insane? Hange figured time and reason would eradicate Levi’s obsession with Eren, but clearly that was not happening.

“You heard the doctor, this was a very clean wound. If the knife had hit the femoral artery, I would have bled to death before we reached the hospital. As it is, I’ll heal in two weeks if I don’t put too much pressure on my leg. Eren wants me to stay away, but isn't willing to seriously injure me to make that happen."

"Are you fucking serious right now?! He threw a knife at you! It wasn't even self-defense!"

Levi covered his ears and grimaced. "Stop yelling. My ears hurt more than my leg does."

Hange flopped onto the couch beside him with a whooshing exhale. There was still tension in their shoulders, and anger and disbelief in their voice, but their words were soft as they said, "I'm glad you're okay."

Levi knew Hange didn't agree with him, but he felt the need to say, "I hope Eren is okay. You recognized the people he was with, right? They were the titans who destroyed the walls and killed my squad. They killed so many people." Hange put a hand on Levi's shaking form to calm him.

"Yeah, I recognized them. But I'm not going to live in the past, and I thought you weren’t going to either. This is a different life, Levi, let it go."

Levi knew Hange was right. He needed to let go of the past if he was going to live peacefully in the future. But not without Eren. It was impossible to have a happy future without knowing Eren was safe and happy as well, and despite what Hange may think, it wasn't because of their past. His desire to see Eren happy was for this Eren, the kid who dreamed of space and traced constellations in the sky for Levi on summer nights as they lay in his backyard.

Levi would not stop fighting to get that kid back until he was dead, on behalf of the Eren who taught him to never lose hope.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder that this story is tagged for graphic depictions of violence and as the story progresses, there will be manga spoilers up to at least chapter 84. Enjoy!

Eren scratched dirt out from under his nails with a blunt knife, waiting for his siblings' overlapping questioning to end. They ran back to the base, periodically checking over their shoulders to ensure they weren't being followed even as Eren reminded them that he threw a knife into the guy's thigh so it was doubtful they were being chased. Eren immediately went to his room to lie down on the couch but his siblings followed him, demanding answers for what happened back at the restaurant. Who was that man? How did Eren know him? What did the cop know about them? Why did that man look familiar?

“Spill." Annie dropped her fist onto Eren's head, who whined and dropped his knife to rub away the pain.

"If you'd all stop talking over each other and ask me a question at a time, I'd gladly answer. But you keep yelling questions at me and it’s fucking irritating.”

Annie glared Reiner and Bert into silence, asking her question first. "Who is that man?"

"His name's Levi." When no more information was given, Annie balled her fists at her side to prevent herself from hitting her brother. "How do you know him?"

Eren was apparently willing to answer so long as the right question was asked, much to his sibling's annoyance. "He used to babysit me when I was a kid until he moved away for college. He was like an older brother to me." Reiner's expression hardened.

"Well he's not anymore," Reiner grumbled, and all three siblings turned to look at him, amusement tipping up the corners of their mouths.

"Of course not. You're the only big brother I want and need. Bert too." Eren rose from the couch and sauntered to the desk Reiner was leaning against. Eren placed his hands on Reiner's chest and slid them up to massage broad shoulders, eliciting a pleasured groan from Reiner.

"Sometimes I wonder about you two," Annie muttered, receiving a cackle from Eren.

"Oh yeah? What about you? All that "training" you and Eren do together, which is basically just you two rolling around on the floor together."

Annie crossed her arms and glared at Reiner, cheeks pink. "Jealous?"

Before Reiner could reply, Bert cut in. “Enough joking around, you both know Eren and I have been together for months. Now, can we get back on topic?” Bert dealt with his siblings bickering often enough to know how to lighten the mood. With one last glare cast in each other's direction from Reiner and Annie, much to Eren's amusement, they picked up the previous conversation and Eren sat down again on the couch.

"So what happened? How much do you think he knows about you, about us? He must know something if he was warning you to stay away from us. Should we get rid of him?”

"There's no need to kill him. He doesn't know anything, trust me." Bert and Reiner accepted Eren's word, but Annie peered at him closely and Eren looked away even though he had no reason to. There was little to no risk of Levi getting the police involved, so there was no reason to kill him, or so Eren reasoned. Levi meant nothing to him now, he was completely honest when he told Levi that earlier, but it didn't mean he wouldn’t care if Levi died. Killing men involved in his dark world or who threatened his place to belong was one thing, killing an innocent man was another. Despite what the mafia believed and what his Father desired, Eren did have a line he wouldn’t cross, a final tether to his humanity his Father’s influence failed to erode.

"Fine. But if he keeps digging into our operation, we'll have to do something. You should mention this to Father."

"Father is busy. This really is nothing. I ran into him last year and it was the first time we saw each other since I was a kid. He's probably just curious what I've been up to."

“That’s it! I’ve got it!"

Reiner's eyes gleamed, proud of himself for answering his own question, but he didn’t share his information with his siblings until Bert asked, "What have you got?,” entertaining Reiner's need for dramatics.

"I thought that guy looked familiar and I finally remembered from where. He stopped by Eren's place last year, saying he was an old friend and made scones or something (which were delicious by the way), but Eren was on an acid trip so I sent him away."

"He made me scones? What kind were they?"

Reiner frowned at Eren for being excited at the wrong piece of information. ”Does it matter?"

"Why didn't you give me them?"

"You were tripping balls and I had to babysit your ass so you wouldn't injure yourself. Some scones were the least I deserved in return."

"Back on topic!" Bert yelled.

"Right, so I met him last year. Geez, he’s a cop? He struck me more as the pompous businessman type.”

"What if he became a cop to look for you, Eren?” Eren shrugged one shoulder lazily, not caring enough about the question to give it serious thought.

"It doesn't matter. Even if he has been looking for me, he's only found me once in a year of searching, and it was a crazy coincidence at that. Stop worrying about it.” Eren tipped on his side and turned over, giving his back to his siblings. Reluctantly, his siblings let the subject go, recognizing that Eren no longer wanted to talk about it.

"Hey, Eren, Father wants me to lead that operation involving the other mafia. You help me and I'll give you five minutes to torture the thief among us when we figure out who it is."

Eren cocked his head back to stare at Reiner as he contemplated the offer. "Ten minutes."

"Father wants him left alive as an example. Five minutes."

"I can torture someone in ten minutes and have them still be alive in the end!" His siblings exchanged doubtful glances. Eren huffed and sunk into the couch cushions.

"Don't pout. Ugh, fine. You can have ten minutes, but I get to stay in the room and stop you at any point if you go too far."

"Reiner," Eren whined, but his brother held firm.

"Final offer."

Eren knew it wasn't really the final offer. Reiner needed his help with the operation, so he would bargain with Eren until they reached an agreement. But running into Levi stirred up forgotten feelings, and he wanted to be alone for a while until they passed.

"Fine." With his agreement, the conversation lulled and not long after everyone went their separate ways as Eren had hoped - Reiner and Bert to their room, and Annie to hers. She paused in the doorway on her way out, staring at Eren's curled form on the couch, but decided to leave him be for now. If he needed to talk, he knew he could always come find her or one of their brothers. They were family, after all.

 

**Flashback - Six Years Ago (Eren: 11, Levi: 17)**

"Eren, sweetie. Levi is here."

Eren ignored his mother's call, curling into a tighter ball beneath his blanket. Levi was the last person he wanted to see. The universe didn't care what he wanted, because after a knock on his door that he ignored, Levi walked in, closing the door behind him and setting his backpack on the floor before sitting next to the blanket-covered lump on the bed.

"Are you going to hide under your blanket the entire time I'm here?"

"I don't want to see you," came the muffled reply.

"But I want to see you." Levi was not an expert at comforting people, and not being able to see Eren's face made it twenty times harder to tell if he was saying the right things or not. Levi waited, and shortly after the room filled with loud wailing.

"We l-lost." Eren hiccuped through his sobs. "I m-missed the last shot. A-and you spent all that time h-helping me practice my k-kick."

Levi knew all this from Mrs. Jaeger. "It's okay, Eren. Everyone misses, it's not a big deal."

"It is! I let my team down, and you..."

"Eren, please take off the blanket."

The blanket lump shook left to right.

"Please?"

After a moment of hesitation Eren unwrapped the blanket from around his head, but he still kept his gaze down and away from Levi's eyes.

"Eren, you didn't let your team down. I'm sure they're sad you lost the game, but if they are smart, they know it's not your fault. Soccer is a team sport, if the team loses, it’s everyone's fault. If your friend Marco missed the last shot, would you be angry at him?"

"Of course not!"

"Exactly. It's okay to be upset that you lost, but don't blame yourself. Don't put all that pressure on yourself either. It’s not all on you to win the game."

Eren’s voice was quiet, hardly louder than a whisper as he said, ”But you spent all that time helping me and I messed up the shot."

"Who cares?” Eren looked up at Levi in surprise.

"Do you really think I'd be mad about that? I had fun helping you practice, and I'll still help you practice even if your team keeps losing. Alright? Please stop crying, Eren, you have snot dripping out of your nose and it's disgusting."

This elicited a smile and a laugh from Eren, who quickly reached a hand up to cover his nose because the exhale from his laughter wasn't helping the snot stay in his nose. Levi spotted a box of tissues on Eren's nightstand and he pulled some out, passing them to Eren who blew like an elephant before tossing the used tissues into the trash can in the corner of his room.

"Look at those perfect shots, maybe you should try out for basketball in the winter." Eren gave a small smile, but Levi knew that he was still beating himself up over the lost soccer game.

"My mom sent me over with scones for your family. But if your mom doesn't know about them, then she won't know we ate them all, will she?" Eren straightened up, looking in front of and behind Levi for the aforementioned scones. Levi chuckled at Eren's excited expression as he pulled the container of freshly made scones out of his backpack.

"Pick a show for us to watch with our dinner."

Eren slipped out of bed with his blanket still wrapped around him and padded to his dresser to fetch the remote. Meanwhile, Levi stacked pillows against the wall at the head of the bed and reclined against them. Eren climbed back onto the bed and settled into the spot next to Levi, resting his head on Levi's shoulder who in turn wrapped his arm around Eren's shoulders, pulling the kid closer and handing him a scone. The tv was background noise as Eren nibbled on his scone and pressed closer to Levi's chest.

In a whisper that Levi would have missed if he hadn't been paying close attention to Eren the entire time instead of the tv, Eren asked, "What if no one on the team is smart and they all hate me and they convince everyone else at school to hate me?"

"Then good riddance."

"Levi," Eren whined, before whispering, "I don't want to be alone."

"You won't be alone. I'll always be here. No matter what, Eren."

***

The memory was bittersweet, but it had an intangible quality to it. Eren felt like he was remembering a story he once read, because the small boy at Levi's side was not him. They were two different people, and that semi-charmed life no longer existed. Levi’s return to Fairview changed nothing. Eren couldn’t curl into Levi’s side and be comforted like he used to.

It’s a good thing he threw that knife at Levi to keep the other man away, because the more he thinks of how they used to be, the tighter his chest becomes and an energy fills the soles of his feet to run towards the raven.

Would this nostalgic attitude befit Zeke’s protégé? Eren knew the answer. To clear his mind of the unwelcome memory, Eren lifted himself from the couch and went in search of his siblings. His bare feet barely had a chance to register the cold cement beneath them before he encountered Reiner.

"Hey, I was just coming to get you. Father wants the operation done sooner rather than later. Are you able to come out tonight?"

"Yes." Eren needed to wash his mind of the past and immerse himself in the present, because it was the only future he had.

***

They piled into a white van around eleven o'clock; Reiner, Eren, and a few other men in their father Zeke’s mafia. Eren never bothered to learn their names. Instead, he referred to them by their distinguishing features. There was Beady Eyes, a small, quick-footed man who spoke little and observed a lot. Eren had worked with him before; he was one of Zeke's right hand men. Sitting next to him was Bushy Brows, a man as compact as Reiner but with the temperament of Bert. Eren liked him, probably because of the similarities to his brothers than any deep connection they built over the years. Although a few times when he or his siblings were sick, Father sent Bushy Brows to watch over them. None of them were incapable of protecting themselves while sick, but an attack from a comrade would surprise anyone, and it wasn't uncommon for Zeke’s men to be jealous of the high positions Eren and his siblings had as a result of Father’s trust in their abilities and loyalty to him. Mostly it was the new guys who had a problem. The ones who witnessed Annie or Eren fight learned quickly that their spots were earned like everyone else's. They just so happened to also be family. Until the new guys learned that, Eren would watch Reiner's back, allowing him to concentrate solely on the operation. As the van bounced down potholed streets, Scruffy Goatee appraised Reiner before diverting his gaze to the floor when he noticed Eren watching him in turn.

Scruffy Goatee was an unremarkable man, but stood out for his unwelcome traits. Eren had trouble understanding him, as his words slurred together into an unintelligible mess more often than not, but it wasn't hard to pick up on the animosity he held for Eren and his siblings. Scruffy Goatee once groped Annie, who sent him limping away with a broken wrist, kicked shin, and black eye, but even the show of her strength wasn't enough to convince him she had her position for a reason and not merely because she was Zeke's “adopted” daughter.

Right now, Scruffy Goatee wasn’t a priority for his focus. Eren wasn’t posturing when he told Levi he heard things. In a world like his, knowledge was power. Information was bought and sold like precious diamonds to be hoarded for one's own benefit or gifted upon another as a show of goodwill or friendship. The news that reached their ears was that a smaller mafia, run by a man named Rod, planned to usurp their stronghold on the drug market by taking them out. Whoever informed Rod that Zeke had grown weak was either ignorant or setting up roadside seats to watch the resulting bloodshed. Whatever the reason, Zeke wasn't going to wait for Rod’s mafia to make the first move. He would remind them why they should fear him.

With sixty feet to go before they reached the abandoned, brick warehouse, Bushy Brows cut the lights and drove another twenty feet before parking the van on the side of the road. Reiner signaled for a silent entry and Eren rolled his eyes, wanting to burst in guns blazing. But this was Reiner’s operation and Eren respected his decision. They grabbed their submachine guns from the trunk and tucked handguns into the waistband at their back, cautiously approaching the warehouse and lining up on either side of the entrance. Through the rusty sliding doors they could hear men talking with the occasional exclamation of anger or cheer. Reiner signaled Beady Eyes to slide open the door and they filtered in, making quick note of the situation they walked into. Rod's men pulled their attention away from their card game to inspect the newcomers, realizing too late they were intruders. They were unprepared for the ensuing chaos, their weapons too far away to help them, but their dying shouts alerted the other members located throughout the warehouse. As armed men arrived, shots rang out and Eren thrived in the adrenaline-fueled shoot or be shot situation. On Reiner’s orders they initially formed a circle in the center, protecting each other’s backs as they killed the men on the ground floor. When bullets rained down from the second level, formation was broken, every man for himself to find shelter. Reiner and Eren dashed for the shipping crates stacked six feet high in one corner of the rectangular facility. As Eren predicted, Scruffy Goatee thought he'd take the opportunity to shoot Reiner amidst the confusion, but Eren stopped him with a bullet to the head, followed by one to the groin for good measure.

"Thanks, man." Eren nodded, not breaking his focus as he scanned their surroundings. The second level of the warehouse was nothing more than hanging walkways, paint-chipped railings lining narrow floors that formed parallel lines from one end of the warehouse to the other before meeting at the back wall, where a thinner walkway could be accessed by a ladder bolted to the wall. Lying on one of the walkways with his gun positioned through the rails, a man aimed straight at Eren and Reiner. Drawing the man's attention away from Reiner, Eren darted to the side and ran atop the discarded card table, jumping into the air and shooting at the man as the man shot at him. Eren landed on his feet, the dead man's bullet continuing its path and lodging into the warehouse wall behind Eren. A knife to the throat of a man Eren passed and another shot to his left cleared his way back to Reiner's side. By this point, the surviving members of the rival mafia had been captured and lined up behind their boss with their hands interlocked at the back of their heads as Zeke’s men stood behind them with pointed guns to prevent any last ditch attempts to turn the tables. Eren confidently strode up to the boss, a grey-haired man in his late fifties wearing a wife-beater. Classy. Eren spit in Rod’s face and laughed as the mafia boss could do nothing but glare with a burning hatred as his dignity was trampled by a mere brat.

"You'll fucking pay for that. I'm going to cut off your head and toss your body in the river. And no one will even bother to fish it out. You know why? Because no one cares about you. Your father is just using you like a pawn piece but as soon as you disappoint him or he has no use for you, he'll cast you aside like he would anyone else." Rod wasn't able to say anymore once Eren's foot collided with his mouth.

"Huh, now there's an idea. I've never cut someone's head off before, but I'm game to try it. Hey Reiner, did we bring a saw? Not a chainsaw, but one of those old rusty ones that wiggles a lot?"

The man did his best to appear unshaken but everyone who researched Zeke’s operation quickly learned of his protégé Eren, and what they learned was that Eren was crazy enough, or heartless enough, to kill someone in the most painful and slowest way possible. Where other men became physically sick or fainted at the sight and smell of large amounts of blood, Eren bathed in it.

"Not sure. But we might still have your axe in the trunk from that one time..." Reiner faded out, not needing to go into detail about the time he was referring to. Everyone knew. Something like that was hard to keep quiet. "Don't worry about it, though. We just needed to remind these guys who is really in charge of this area and I think we got the message across. Right?"

The men on the ground bobbed their heads, some of them furiously enough that they butted against the guns aimed at the back of their heads, the reminder of their powerlessness causing them to bob even faster.

"No, I don't think so. They'll want revenge and come after us. It's better to get rid of them now." Eren made guns out of his hands and shot at the men, who flinched.

"We won't." A few men nodded in agreement with their comrade’s words, hoping to change Eren's mind.

"Maybe you won't," Eren conceded, and the men allowed themselves to breathe again. "But like your boss said, I'm only kept around so long as I'm useful. What do you think would please my father more? To hear I had a nice talk with the mafia that was planning to target us and convinced them to leave us alone, or that I wiped them out to avoid any chance of a surprise attack? I don't know guys, but I'm thinking the second option sounds much better. Plus, I was having a bad day and your boss made it worse, so now I really want to break something. Like your bodies." Eren's sharp, toothy smile caused one man to cry, a few begging in vain for their lives, while the boss who knew it was the end decided to go out fighting, yelling every cuss word and insult he thought would hurt Eren, but Eren was impervious, not caring in the slightest about the man's opinion of him.

"Ooh, new idea. Why don't you watch as I kill your men?” Pointy Chin, the man standing behind Rod, twisted his fingers in Rod’s hair and used his hold to  turn the boss’s head to look behind him at his men.

"Eren..."

Eren ignored Reiner, spinning his finger in a circle in the air dramatically, as if rounding up soldiers. "On my command, shoot!"

Beady Eyes, Bushy Brows, and the other men stood at the ready, guns cocked at the backs of the captive's heads. Some continued to pray, beg, and cry, while others had their eyes closed, either preparing to accept the end or unwilling to see it.

"Pow." Eren pointed his finger gun at the man at the far left of the line and then the gun sounded, followed by the man falling face down on the concrete, his blood seeping from the wound to slither down the sides of his head and form a puddle, staining the grey cement wine red. Eren shot his other hand, and the next man fell. It continued in this way all down the line, Eren sometimes spinning on one foot before shooting both fingers at the men as if he were a pop-star wooing his fans, until all the men were dead except Rod.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, how rude of me." Eren skipped towards the last kneeling man and squatted down so their faces were level. The boss glared at him, eyes unable to hide the fear, and the expression tickled the back of Eren's mind. Someone — or multiple someones? — had looked at him like that once before, eyes a mixture of distrust and fear. He didn't like it. It made him feel small and scared for some reason, like he was out of control.

"Eren?" Reiner reached a hand out to his brother whose eyes were glazed over as he clutched his right arm. Before Reiner touched him, Eren snapped out of it. Eren couldn't place why those fearful eyes bothered him, but all that mattered was they did. Eren would get rid of them.

"Don't look at me like that." Reiner jumped back, frightened by the deep, inhuman tone of Eren's voice. Thankfully, it wasn't directed at him. "Don't look at me!" Eren shouted as he lifted a piece of wood from one of the broken crates nearby and jammed it into Rod's eye. The man screamed and struggled, but Pointy Chin held him tightly in place, even as he and everyone else but Eren turned away from the gruesome sight, as clear liquid leaked from the eye socket and popped blood vessels slowly turned it red. Eren felt around for another piece of wood, his gaze locked in place by Rod’s other eye, judging him, fearing him, and then he wrapped his hand around a rock and smashed it into the remaining eye to the resulting howl of the man it belonged to.

"You're a monster!"

Eren pulled his arm back, ready to strike again with the rock.

"I know."


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking a while to update! Thank you for being patient with me! This chapter was hard to write because it’s necessary plot stuff, but I just want to write Eren’s character. Hope you enjoy it anyway. Next chapter is back to Eren though!

Levi closed his laptop lid, putting it to sleep and thus reactivating password entry. He couldn’t risk Hange seeing what he was doing. It would make them angry and start another fight. He shut his bedroom door and walked down the hall to the kitchen. Hange stood over the stove, stirring a pot of beef stew. Since his injury three weeks ago, Hange insisted on stopping by most evenings to eat dinner together and chat. While the wound wasn’t serious, it did prevent him from patrolling, unable to chase a criminal if need be. Chief Anderson relegated him to desk work, which a month ago would have been a death sentence, but now was a welcomed rest. Instead of late shifts circling the city in a patrol car, Levi returned home by six o’clock, ate a healthy meal, and caught up on much-needed sleep. The desk work and free evenings gave him ample time to dig into the histories of the titan trio, which is what he was doing on his laptop before joining Hange in the kitchen.

Hange didn’t approve. When it became unquestionably clear that Levi wasn’t going to let Eren go, Hange stopped arguing with him. In return, Levi hid his extra-curricular activities. It was hardly a cure; there was an ever-present elephant in the room and it was impossible for there not to be. Levi’s life revolved around saving Eren. Conversation was strained, since even the simplest questions Hange asked could be traced back to Eren. How was Levi’s day? Good if he found case files mentioning gang activity that he could pilfer for clues on Eren’s whereabouts, bad if he found nothing. Hange couldn’t even inquire about his injury without both of their minds conjuring Eren and the trio he was with. The free evenings Levi was afforded while being on bedrest augmented what he knew about the trio, but as exciting as it was to understand who Eren spent his time with, he had no one to share the info with.

Part of Levi felt bad for the kids, for they were the same age as Eren and thus kids in his mind. Bertholdt’s mother and father were high school sweethearts who became amateur art thieves. Henrietta Fubar died while giving birth to Bertholdt, and a distraught Klaus Fubar abandoned his son with his mother to run around the country, stealing and drinking and occasionally ending up in prison before being released and running heists not days later. Bertholdt was brought in for questioning on his father’s whereabouts as a child but it quickly became evident that the father kept no contact with his son.

Reiner Braun’s history was a little more colorful. Parents died in a car crash when he was four, spent three years in an orphanage with the prospect of a foster home, but when he was caught stealing a toy truck from a store that prospect vanished. Shortly after, Reiner Braun ran away from the orphanage and little was done to find him. The system didn’t care; it was as if Reiner Braun never existed.

Annie Leonhardt was a mystery because little stood out about her. She had two parents and attended the city high school with a near perfect attendance. To the merely curious, her profile raised no red flags. It was only on a hunch that Levi investigated her parents and learned that her father’s place of employment went out of business almost ten years ago. Around the same time, all records of the man from credit card use to tax history stopped, as if he were dead. Yet no amount of digging uncovered a death certificate for him or his wife.

“What are you thinking about?”

Levi momentarily forgot Hange was standing beside him as he reflected on his findings, but managed to hide his guilt before his best friend spotted it. His gaze had been locked on the sourdough bread rolls. He hoped they were a believable cause for the concentrated look he’s sure he was wearing.

“Just weighing the risk of eating a slice of bread before dinner is finished. Last time you almost sliced off my finger.”

Hange laughed at the look of terror on Levi’s face, assuming it was at the memory Levi referred to, but his words brought him back to another memory, a horrid one from a year ago.

“Lucky for you, the stew is ready.” Hange ladled the stew into a bowl and passed it to Levi along with a slice of bread before serving themself.

They knew they should eat at the dining room table, but college ingrained the bad habit of eating in front of the TV and neither Levi nor Hange felt like breaking it. Levi’s dining room table only received use when his mother came over for dinner. Levi hadn’t seen her in over three weeks. His creativity was put to the test in thinking up reasons to avoid his mother until his limp went away, but he needed to visit Kuchel soon before she broke down his apartment door in her quest to see her son.

Hange grabbed the remote and flipped through channels before stopping on _Cutthroat Kitchen._ The show was Hange’s latest obsession and they only allowed Levi to speak during it if he was casting his vote on who would lose the challenge, though they were allowed to speak whenever they pleased, shouting at the screen when their preferred champion was issued a crippling disadvantage. It was during a commercial for contact lenses that Hange muted the television, setting their empty bowl on the coffee table and twisting in their seat to face Levi.

“You’re still searching for him, aren’t you?”

Levi stiffened, knowing he couldn’t possibly succeed in lying when asked directly. “Yes.”

Hange hummed then un-muted the television. Levi stole the remote from their grasp and hit mute again.

“That’s it? After all the time you spent telling me it was dangerous and futile to search for Eren, that’s your reaction?”

“Yup.” Hange smiled at Levi’s shocked expression. “I don’t want you to get hurt, and I don’t approve of you not pursuing a career in business (what you went to college for might I add), but you’ve made it clear that Eren is more important to you, and what’s important to you is important to me. I’m not going to keep fighting you. You know what they say: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

At a loss for words, Levi punched Hange lightly on the arm and Hange chuckled, wrapping their arm around his neck and pulling him in close for a noogie. Levi felt too relieved to be upset about his hair being mussed. It was hard not having Hange to talk to. They were his best friend, always listening to his problems and offering advice and support.

“What’s your plan?”

“I don’t have one yet,” Levi admitted. “I guess I’m stupidly hoping Eren will seek me out.”

“You’re not being stupid. If he’s still that kid you remember, I’m sure you’ll see him again.” Levi’s mouth tightened into a thin line. With every passing day that Eren did not appear, Levi’s belief that that innocent boy would return diminished.

“Have you tried contacting Mr. Jaeger?”

Levi’s head lifted; if he were a dog, his ears would be standing up. “No, I didn’t think of that. It’s weird, right? How can Mr. Jaeger be completely oblivious to how different Eren is?” Was the man attributing his son’s behavior change to teenage mood swings?

“I’m going to call him. Fill me in on what happens,” he added, but Hange’s attention was already back on the show. A chef was preparing food while stuck in a ball pit. Who came up with this shit?

Levi shut his bedroom door behind him, blocking out Hange’s shouts of encouragement for her favored champion and booing the competitors, reaching for his cell phone on his dresser and dialing the number he’s long since memorized for the hospital his mother works at.

The line connected and he asked for Dr. Jaeger, listening for a minute as the secretary explained that Dr. Jaeger accepted a residency at an esteemed hospital in Sweden and wouldn’t be back for half a year before forcefully pressing his thumb against the End Call button and cutting the woman off mid-sentence.

“Did you reach him?” Hange spared a glance over their shoulder to get a quick answer, but fully divested their attention from the TV at the stormy expression morphing Levi’s features, the twister pulling his lips into a snarl and the blizzard hardening his grey-blue eyes into icicles.

“What happened?”

“That…that fucker! He was always too busy with his job to teach Eren how to throw a baseball or come to see him play guitar at the school talent show. But to actually abandon him after he’s already lost his mother! What kind of father just takes off for Sweden to accept a residency and doesn’t take his son with him?! Or at least send his son to live with relatives who will care for him in his absence?”

“Eren’s father is in Sweden?”

Levi’s throat hurt from yelling so he nodded his head sharply in response to Hange’s question as he swallowed, letting the saliva soothe his raw throat.

“That’s…wow. It makes more sense now why Eren found a new family.”

Levi grit his teeth. Was it really better? For Eren to have a family if they were drug dealers and murderers? How was that any better of an environment to grow up in?

It wasn’t. Maybe it did some good before, gave Eren people who would protect and care for him, but he didn’t need that anymore. Eren had Levi. Levi was his family, always had been, and he wasn’t leaving anytime soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we’re back to Eren! (aka the most interesting (to me at least) part of this story)
> 
> Thank you to anyone who is still reading this for your patience with me, since my updates are very irregular. I hope you enjoy this chapter and the rest of the fic.

_Eren._

  
_Eren._

 

 

“Eren.”

Eren opened his eyes to see Reiner standing in the doorway of his room, eyebrows knit with worry, and Eren realized it must have been Reiner calling his name. When he shut his eyes, he heard many voices calling his name, some high pitched and some low, calls of warning and relief. Somehow he understood that the person was relieved to still be able to say his name. But the voices disappeared when he opened his eyes. It was only him lying on the couch and Reiner waiting in the doorway, shifting from foot to foot, uncertain how to behave around him.

When Eren did not join them for dinner - which was more often than not this week - Annie, Bert, and Reiner gossiped. They were familiar with Eren’s occasional ruts, caused by his nightmares which they long ago learned to stop asking him to talk about, but Reiner was convinced that the cause this time was that cop. Levi. Eren hadn’t been the same since the incident at the restaurant. He’d been more emotionally volatile, more violent, more isolated. He skipped school more often than he attended and slept instead of ate. His siblings were worried.

“Annie and Bert made tacos. Are you going to eat with us tonight?”

Eren’s flat eyes stared up at the dingy white plaster ceiling. “No.”

“Are you sure? You love tacos, and Annie bought that 3-cheese blend. Remember that fit you threw when she bought plain mozzarella?”

“Leave me alone.”

Reiner’s first impulse was to yell at Eren and demand that he stop acting like a jackass, then leave as Eren had ordered. But leaving Eren alone was one thing Reiner could not do. He was Eren’s older brother - his job was to protect his younger sibling - and even if Eren’s attitude was wearing his patience thin, he would still be there for him. Eren said nothing even though he heard Reiner’s heavy footfalls approach the couch.

“Scoot.”

Eren snarled but still pulled his legs to his chest, allowing Reiner to sit at the end of the couch. Eren dropped his legs heavily onto Reiner’s lap.

“Are you mad at us?”

Eren frowned, but it was directed at himself for making his siblings think they did anything wrong. “No. I’m just…” He let his sentence hang in the air, uncertain of what he was. Conflicted? Confused? Angry? Sad? All of the above? He couldn’t be any of those things. Well, except for angry. Anger was the only emotion this life allowed him, but he had no discernible reason for his anger and no outlet for it until he was sent on another mission, and who knew when that would be.

“No, I’m not mad at you. I haven’t been sleeping well and it’s made me irritable. It’s better if you guys stay away from me for a while so I don’t say something hurtful that I don’t mean.”

“Hmm.”

They sat together quietly, listening to the sound of cutlery clinking and the thud of glasses being placed on the table as Annie and Bert shuffled around the kitchen downstairs, setting the table for dinner.

“Will you eat if I bring you food?” At Eren’s silence Reiner added, “Don’t worry about it,” realizing Eren wasn’t responding because the answer was yes, but he would feel guilty if Reiner went out of his way to bring him food. Reiner lifted Eren’s legs so he could stand then let them drop ungracefully back onto the cushion, the force raising dust particles into the air.

“Thanks, Reiner.”

Reiner turned back around when he reached the doorway. “Anything for you, my prince.”

With a smirk and a dodge of the pillow Eren threw at him, Reiner descended to the kitchen. He shook his head at Annie and Bert’s questioning glances, but their worried expressions lightened when Reiner filled a plate with tacos and returned upstairs, glad that their brother was eating dinner at least, even though he wasn’t eating with them.

  
***

  
The night brought tears but thankfully not solitude. Annie, as always, was by his side.

“Hush, hush.” The sound, soothing like ocean waves breaking on the shore, was not enough tonight to erase the images flashing behind his eyes when he tried to fall back asleep. Eren kept his eyes open, and Annie sat on the floor beside the couch, brushing softly through his thick hair.

This marked the fourth night in a row. What started simply enough as a dream-memory of Levi and him enjoying their Taco Tuesday tradition quickly turned into a memory — no, a nightmare, it was just a nightmare — of a blonde kid being shoved between the lips of a giant and eaten. Eren felt sadness but it was overridden by the anger of losing someone he cared about and not being able to stop it. Eren screamed as he charged blindly at the monster but he never came close to hitting it. It was one of those awful dreams where the harder he tried to reach his destination, the further he was from it. Tears of frustration leaked from the corners of his closed eyes, which Annie wiped away when she arrived, drawn to his side by his strangled yelling in his sleep.

“Hush, Eren. Go back to sleep.”

He didn’t want to go back to sleep. He didn’t want to return to suffering and pain and loss. He didn’t want to remember.

In the morning, Annie’s head was resting on the couch, her body slumped against it. It wasn’t a comfortable position and her neck would hurt when she woke up, but it’s the price she willingly paid to stay by Eren’s side and comfort him back to sleep.

Eren woke up first, moving carefully so he didn’t disturb Annie’s sleep. He slid his beat-up pair of black Converse onto his feet and opened the office’s balcony door. A crisp wind cut his bare arms and swirled underneath his loose t-shirt, but Eren didn’t return inside for a jacket. He liked feeling the air whip around him. He climbed on top of the balcony railing, stretching his arms overhead to grab the edge of the roof and haul himself up. Broken tiles crunched under his feet and some that were loose slid off the roof, the sound of their shattering as they fell to the ground distant in his ears.

Eren stared outwards at the blue-grey morning sky. Everything around him turned silent, the wind moving his hair but not creating a sound. Eren blinked. Birds flew overhead. From on top of the wall he saw an ocean of rolling grass combed by the wind, and a thick clump of trees in the distance. Eren blinked. The drained riverbed slouched before him, no vitality emanating from its murky, muddy form. In his peripheral vision Eren spotted the fence encircling the water tower, keeping unwanted persons off the premises, though a measly fence could not keep someone out if they intended to get in. There was nothing in that water tower now, so the fence no longer served a purpose. It was a relic of a time when there was something to protect. Eren blinked. Static filled the crackling air, the noise crescendoing until a bolt of yellow electricity lit up the otherwise blue sky. Eren didn’t have to turn around to know something was behind him, he could see its enormous shadow looming over him. He turned anyway, facing the monster that initiated his life of suffering. Eren blinked. Another roof tile became dislodged under his foot, its noise grating on his ears as it slowly slipped downwards. Pulling his leg back to swing it harshly forward, Eren kicked the tile off the roof, watching it soar into the uninhabited empty space in front of him before cracking as it made impact with the dead grass and dry dirt surrounding the old water treatment facility.

“Eren? Are you up there? If you are, come inside. Bert made pancakes.”

Eren locked his gaze on the horizon, fighting futilely against the deceptively harmless wind that was drying out his eyes. He conjured up an image of Annie with her blonde hair pulled into an austere bun, though a few wispy strands always escaped and softened her features. She was waiting for him inside, inside a building with electricity, and somewhere in there Bert was flipping pancakes on a griddle. Eren strained to keep his eyes open, but it was no use. He’s only human.

He blinked.

Somehow he made it off the roof in one piece and found his way to the kitchen, accepting a plate of food from Bert as he passed him on his way to sit at the table across from Reiner. He used the side of his fork to cut the fluffy blueberry pancake, jabbed it with the tines, then positioned the bite between his teeth, which clamped down to accept and swallow the food. The familiar actions stirred up memories - no, his nightmare - from last night, and he almost didn’t make it to the trash in time to relinquish his breakfast and any other contents in his stomach. First he lost sleep, now he lost the ability to eat. And judging from his experience this morning, he’s quickly losing the ability to differentiate this world from his dream world.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember to heed the tags. Graphic depictions of violence is no joke.

Five weeks after what has since been referred to as The Execution at the warehouse, the traitor in their midst was found. Eren didn’t care for the logistics of how the traitor who had been stealing from their operation was found; all he retained from Reiner’s lengthy retelling was that he was an accomplice to Scruffy Goatee. Figures shit sticks to shit, and Eren would have no problem handling the accomplice as he did his pal.

Eren followed Reiner to the basement, a bounce in his step and furious light glowing from his eyes that looked almost yellow-green in the barely lit concrete hallway.

“Chill, man.” Reiner tossed a small smile over his shoulder at his brother who was almost stepping on his heels, following closely behind him like an excited puppy. Turning forwards again, Eren could not see the worried creases between his brother’s eyebrows. Reiner could still recall the small boy sinking in a snowdrift until he lifted him in his arms and carried him home. He couldn’t judge Eren for changing, not when he too had been made to do things that altered his being. If anything, it wasn’t judgement but pity Reiner felt for Eren. He would never share these thoughts out loud, it wasn’t safe when you could never trust that you were completely alone, but Reiner slightly resented Father for brainwashing Eren into being the killing machine he has become.

Reiner did what he had to and didn’t complain, but he didn’t enjoy it as Eren was conditioned to. He wished he never struck that deal with Eren, his help at the warehouse in exchange for torturing privileges, but what was done was done. If he could prevent Eren from killing more people he would. His brother didn’t need another death on his hands, blackening his soul, warping his mind.

At least this was just torture.

  
***

  
Eren moved in graceful circles around the man strapped to the chair, his sharp white teeth fully displayed in his broad, cruel smile. On a cart to the side lay an assortment of tools. It resembled a dentist’s tray of equipment, except these tools were larger and definitely not intended for use on humans. It was an unusual mix of items: a hammer, a mini drill, jumper cables, a hand saw, a wrench, and of course a long knife. It was like someone raided Home Depot.

Eren assessed his options, picking out his choice torture tools then mentally ordering their use. He decided to start with the wrench. The chair rattled as the man struggled to move away from his approaching tormentor, but some intelligent soul had the foresight to bolt the chair to the ground, keeping the victim in place.

Eren paused. Was this man a victim? Was he about to torture a victim? The hand holding the wrench lowered.

No. This man hurt his family. Stole from them. Pretended to be a part of their group while hiding his true intentions. Eren recognized this man as the one who patted him on the shoulder after a successful raid. Meanwhile he was plotting with Scruffy Goatee how to steal for themselves the hard-earned profits of that day. A few men died during that raid, but their deaths allowed the survivors to benefit. Only for the scum in front of him and the one buried in a ditch behind a warehouse fifteen miles from here to desecrate their sacrifice. No, this man wasn’t a victim. Eren was the victim. His family was the victim.

The man struggled against his restraints, clenching his hands into fists to protect his fingers. That was fine. Eren traded his wrench for the drill.

“You have to hold still,” Eren chided, turning on the drill and plunging it through the man’s hand, causing him to splay out his fingers to protect them from the drill sinking through his palm.

“Much better.” The wrench was lifted off the cart once again. The man was in too much pain to notice as the wrench was fit around his pointer finger. He noticed once the wrench tightened enough to break the bone.

Reiner observed Eren’s plaything with pity. He wasn’t against the idea of torture for those that deserved it, but Eren could be ruthless when he wanted, especially when the perpetrator was guilty of acting against their family. It was sweet in a twisted way how far Eren’s care for them made him go, but if this cruel life had permitted, Reiner would have much rather spared his sibling the circumstances that brought them here. Even if it meant letting an innocent boy freeze to death in a snowdrift.

Eren surveyed the remaining tools and pondered which to use next, before his attention was drawn back to the man as he spat, “This is fucking nonsense.”

“What is?”

“This!” The man rattled his chains as he shifted in his seat, leaning forward to glare at Eren. “Who cares if I took a little extra? Us adults need the money more than a brat like you. You should have died in the streets.”

What was this tingling in the back of his mind?

_Why should we hafta give our bread to some lousy outsiders?_

But they needed bread too. Who was the ‘they’ he was remembering?

_If the Titans got through the wall, they could’ve at least eaten some more people, if you ask me!_

“Eren! Calm down!” Reiner pulled him off the man, features unidentifiable under the blood gushing from his nose and out of his mouth where he lost a few teeth. “If you don’t get a grip of yourself, this torture ends.” Eren huffed, struggling to cover his rage so Reiner would let go of him. He wasn’t done yet.

“I’m fine.”

Reiner appraised him. “Are you sure?” Eren heard worse than being told he should have died as a kid. Lots of men resented them at first for sucking up resources until they were old enough to be useful. It never bothered Eren before. He put whatever emotions he felt into proving them wrong, proving that he was useful. Eren nodded and Reiner let him go, stepping back to his position against the wall. His posture was tense, ready to intervene again if Eren went overboard.

Gripping the hammer first, Eren swung at the man’s kneecaps, shattering them. The man puked from the excruciating pain. It was cruel, but Eren held his composure well and Reiner couldn’t tell that he was still seething over what the man had said. That was until the facade of calm broke and Eren placed the jumper cables on either side of the man’s head.

Reiner’s ears hurt from the anguished shrieking of the man and Eren’s howls of rage mixed in, but the smell of burning flesh was the hardest to deal with. Still, Reiner pushed himself forward to turn off the cables. Eren whipped around to glare at Reiner and he unintentionally took a step back. In the dark basement cell, Eren’s eyes glowed.

Reiner frowned, having no choice but to punch Eren in the head to break whatever haze clouded his mind. While he was disoriented, Reiner tossed Eren over his shoulder and brought him into the hallway, shutting the metal door to the torture room behind him to prevent the smell of burnt flesh from following them. He set Eren down on his feet and shoved him against the wall, blocking him in with his arms.

Something was bothering Eren; as a good older brother, Reiner wanted to know what it was. Eren tended to go overboard, more violent than any of the others were capable of being, a result of Father's training for Eren to succeed him, but tonight was even further than Reiner believed he could go.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Eren avoided Reiner's gaze and tried to move forward, but Reiner pushed Eren back against the wall. "Let me go."

"No. You're not going anywhere until you talk to me."

Eren glared at Reiner then stared in confusion as his vision flashed, like a curtain fell over the scene. Instead of the wall behind him, it was a tree. And instead of the black cargo pants and grey tank top Reiner was wearing, it was a military outfit, the material and style both familiar and foreign.

Reiner snapped his fingers in front of Eren's dazed face, the second time today he witnessed Eren space out. "Hey, man, what's with you?"

Eren filled with an unexplainable anger towards Reiner. He shoved Reiner harshly, who pushed back, not willing to let Eren take his troubles out on him.

"You...you..." Eren didn't know what was wrong, but he was filled with a deep, sad hate towards Reiner. He didn't want to be angry but he was. Reiner betrayed him. _You can't trust them_. Levi's words echoed in his mind. Eren's fist flew into Reiner's jaw before he rationalized his thoughts and Reiner responded with a punch that split his lip.

"Hey, what are you two doing?!” Bert jumped between them, pressing one hand against Eren's chest and the other against Reiner's to separate them. Reiner backed off immediately, not even knowing why they were fighting, but Eren only became angrier upon seeing Bert.

"It's all your fault. Both of you. You fucking destroyed everything!" The shout ripped through Eren's throat, leaving behind a stinging pain in his vocal chords. Bert stepped back, confused by Eren's words, and with his movement the illusion shattered. They were back in the hallway of the base, wearing modern clothes.

"I don't..." Eren shook his head in his hands and stumbled backwards away from his brothers. Brothers? That word felt foreign, he didn't have brothers. But he had a sister. Annie. Where was Annie? The confusion was like a thick fog he was struggling to wade through. He tripped backwards a few steps, distancing himself from Reiner and Bert before facing forward and sprinting away, calls of concern echoing in the hall around him. Fortunately, Reiner and Bert didn't chase him. Eren vaulted up the basement steps two at a time, missing when he was halfway up and landing hard on his knees. He remained there, letting himself catch his breath.

"Eren?!"

Annie collapsed on the stairs next to Eren and hesitated before resting her hand on Eren's shaking back. "Eren, look at me. What's wrong? What happened?" Annie's hand on his back wasn't what he expected. It was smaller and colder. But it had always been small and cold. Whose hand was he remembering?

"Annie..."

No longer were they both on the basement stairs, but Eren was in a tunnel looking up a staircase at Annie, who stood at the entrance. She was wearing the same  strange military uniform as Reiner had been. Once again the feeling that pulsed through Eren was betrayal and hurt.

_You can't trust them._

Eren clamped his mouth shut. What if Levi was right? He couldn't tell Annie what was wrong. He hated Levi for making him doubt his family, but the seed had been planted and was taking root. It was paralyzing. He couldn't make a move until he learned what Levi meant. Eren pushed Annie away from him and scrambled up the stairs, running till he reached his room. He had to speak to Levi. Where was Levi? He couldn't walk into the police station and ask if he was there. Not like the cops would know who he was, but it was better to remain completely off their radar. Wait, it was night. Levi should be at home unless he had a night shift. It was worth it to check. The sooner he figured out what was happening, the sooner he could return to his siblings' sides. He didn't want to feel this way, distrustful, scared, and confused. If Levi's information amounted to nothing but a scare tactic to get Eren out of the mafia, Eren would make sure he regretted it.

He shimmied down the drain pipe in the dark and ran the path he took to reach his house, going two extra blocks to reach Levi's. He knocked rapidly and waited half a second before knocking again, not caring if he woke the neighbors. Finally the door opened but it wasn't Levi who stood in the doorway.

"Shit."

"Eren?! Sweetie, are you okay? What are you doing out this late? Come inside and I'll make you some tea, dear."

Eren backed away from Mrs. Ackerman. Her hair had greyed, but otherwise she looked exactly as he remembered. It was surreal to see her after all these years. _Before him was darkness and behind him was a soft glow, coming from a closed door. The door had a small window with cracked, grimy glass, but through it Eren could see a little boy playing hockey on a pond, an older boy passing him the puck then blocking the makeshift goal as the boy took a shot. A woman yelled for them to come inside for hot cocoa._

"Eren, sweetheart?"

Eren ran again, jumping over bushes in his haste to escape. This was a terrible idea. What good would seeing Levi do? It made no difference if his siblings betrayed him or not. It was thanks to them that he lived this long to begin with. Still, he needed space, so instead of returning to the base he went to his house. He wished that he could go one night without the nightmares, but if there was a god that answered such requests, they would never listen to a wish from a monster. Eren fell asleep, leaving behind the quiet of his bedroom for the screaming cries of anguish as loved ones died around him.

  
***

  
A small hand on his shoulder rocked his body back and forth.

"Eren? Wake up, you're having a nightmare."

Eren's eyes fluttered open. He had been dreaming about a giant with blonde hair chasing him and people he cared about, killing them off one by one until it was just him and the monster. When his eyes opened to see the figure hovering over his bed, he screamed, confused whether he was awake or not because the monster from his nightmare was here in the flesh.

"Eren, it's me. It's Annie. Are you awake now?"

It was Annie. That information didn't soothe him as it should have, as it had the other times he awoke from a bad dream and Annie was by his side, ready to comfort him until he fell back asleep.

"Go away."

"Eren?"

“Please. Just, wait outside. I need a moment."

Annie did as Eren asked, not wanting to leave him alone but recognizing that her presence was doing nothing to soothe him. She closed his bedroom door softly behind her and waited in the kitchen.

When Eren didn't return to the base last night, Annie came to look for him at his house. Reiner was more concerned than he was angry with Eren for punching him, but Bert and Annie convinced him it was better if she went after Eren alone, since he reacted less negatively towards her. They were worried about their brother. His nightmares were becoming more frequent, almost a nightly occurrence, and whether it was related or not, his thirst for violence had increased as well.

Eren's bedroom door opened and Annie watched her brother shuffle out to sit next to her at the kitchen table. He lay his head down in the pillow made by his folded arms and closed his eyes again.

"Eren, what happened last night?"

Eren sighed, knowing Annie wouldn't waste time with small talk. He couldn't explain to her that he was going crazy, seeing things that made no sense and feeling things for no reason.

"Are you taking drugs again?"

It was the easiest way out, so Eren took it. "Yes."

Annie sighed, fearing that was the reason behind her brother's strange mood shift and now having it confirmed.

"You know you shouldn't. They make you paranoid. Last time we had to lock you in the basement for two days until the drugs left your system. What are you on this time?"

Eren laughed and Annie winced at the panicked, nearly sobbing sound. "I don't know."

"You don’t—" Before Annie pressed for more information, the front door slammed open to reveal Reiner, Bert behind him and apologizing with his eyes to Annie for not being able to stop their eldest brother. Reiner took in Eren's tired expression and Annie's worried hovering around him.

"Eren's on drugs again."

The two boys shut the door behind them and walked further into the house.

"Eren..." Bert sighed, concern laced throughout his tone and countenance. Eren laughed again, because his siblings were sad and serious over a lie he told.

"Don't worry. We'll help you get off it just like last time." Reiner sat in the chair on Eren's other side and rubbed his large hand along his brother's back. It was comforting, Reiner was comforting, being surrounded by his siblings was comforting, and Eren hadn't felt like this around them in a while. Even this morning, seeing Annie sent him into a panic before that panic transformed into the desire to hurt her.

"I don't know what's wrong," Eren wailed, dissolving into tears. His three siblings wrapped around him and Eren hated the strange sensation he couldn’t shake that there was one person too many in this group hug.


	8. Chapter 8

"What did Hange do to get you to rest that your own mother didn't? Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. The important thing is you have been sleeping a full night."

"Mhm." Levi rolled his eyes and forked another bite of pasta into his mouth.

“You have to take care of your health. It’s not good to stay up late.” Kuchel frowned as the previous nights events sprung to mind. “Sweetie, have you seen Eren since you've been back?"

Levi choked on his food, completely blindsided by the turn in conversation. "Eren?"

"Yes. He didn't look well last night."

"What? You saw Eren?!”

Kuchel leaned back in her chair to put space between herself and her son who now stood, gripping both edges of the dining room table as he leaned over it towards his mother as if he could hear her better a foot closer.

"It wasn't for long. It must have been two or three in the morning when I woke up to horrendous knocking on the door, so I opened it and there was Eren, shaking like a leaf and eyes wide like something was chasing him. He seemed confused.” Her erect posture crumbled as her shoulders dropped. “I asked him to come inside for tea but he ran off without saying anything. I think he was looking for you and didn't realize you have a place of your own now."

"Why didn't you call me?” Levi gripped the edges of the table harder to ground himself long enough to hear his mother’s reply.

"Levi, dear, it was the middle of the night. You have finally been getting much needed sleep. I wasn't about to wake you up—”

Levi didn't wait for his mother to finish her excuse. He rushed to the entryway, jamming his feet into his boots before running out the door, not bothering to shut it behind him. His legs pumped furiously as he ran the familiar path to Eren’s house, praying he would find Eren at home.

Eren sought him out. That alone made Levi’s heart soar with hope, only to drop the next instant as the realization set in that Eren couldn't find him. His promise to be there for Eren was a string of empty words coated in true intentions. Once again, he failed to be in reach when Eren needed him.

In six minutes Levi stood on Eren's front step, pausing for a second to catch his breath before he was denting the wood with his sharp knocks. When he realized that Eren was unlikely to open the door to aggressive knocking, especially considering the people he was involved with, Levi stopped, opting to call through the door. He heard the bolt unlatch and then Eren stood on the other side of the door, bagged eyes and rumpled clothes telling of a night spent tossing around unable to find sleep.

"Are you okay? My mom said,” Levi stopped to catch more of his breath and start over. “I’m sorry you couldn't find me. I now live in an apartment across town…Eren?”

Eren peered into the darkness behind and around Levi before pulling on Levi's sleeve to drag him inside the house. Eren said nothing and Levi dared not speak as he watched Eren bolt the door then circle the perimeter of his house, checking that all the window shades were drawn. He moved like a frightened animal, second-guessing every step before he made it. Once he verified that every window was locked and covered, he stood in the middle of the living room, eyes flickering from one corner to the next as if he anticipated a surprise attack from behind the recliner.

"You were looking for me?” That seemed to help, giving Eren a focused direction to move in.

“Yes." Eren slowly turned to face him, shaking his head to clear it. “What did you mean before, when you said I couldn't trust the people I was with?"

"You mean Annie, Reiner, and Bert?"

If possible Eren's posture tensed more, ready to strike if he deemed it necessary. It was a painful reminder that Eren may have sought him out, but he still wasn't the same Eren who asked Levi to play frisbee in the backyard on a cool autumn afternoon.

"How do you know their names?"

“Wait, wait, the cops don't know anything about them. I’ll explain in a minute, but this is why I wanted to talk to you."

"Fine, then talk!"

This was what Levi feared, that Eren would break down as his memories returned. There was supposed to be more time, a few weeks at least, but it didn't look like Eren had a few weeks.

"Will you sit down? I'm not telling you anything until you're calm."

"I am calm! This is as fucking calm as it gets! Everything was fine until you came back to town and now I can't trust anyone. I can't go home and I have no one to turn to and it's all your fault!" Eren's screaming cut off when his voice grew hoarse and then the tears began to fall. Eren didn't bother to wipe them away; he glared at Levi as they filled his vision before overflowing and sliding down to his chin where they dripped to the floor.

"Eren." Levi wanted to wrap the boy in his arms like he used to. He desperately wanted things to be like they used to and despite all the evidence to the contrary, Levi never lost hope that it could. If there was one constant between his past life and his current one, it was that any situation involving Eren ignited every fiber of his being with hope.

Acting on this hope, he stepped slowly forwards, arms out to the side. Before he reached Eren, Eren reached him, landing in his arms. Levi ignored the weak punches the brunet beat against his chest, knowing they weren't meant to push him away. Levi’s arms wrapped tightly around Eren as one hand lifted to the teen's hair and pressed the head down to rest on his shoulder, the palm of his hand resting on the crown of Eren's head to function as a soothing weight.

"I don't understand anything anymore,” the voice against his shoulder mumbled. “I was fine with my life but I keep remembering this other one and it makes me repulsed by the life I've been living and the people I've come to think of as family.” The voice’s pitch increased. “Why? Was it a bad batch of coke? Is this all a hallucination?"

Levi waited to speak. He couldn't tell Eren anything until the boy was calm.

“Why do I feel like you’re the only person I can trust?”

The mask of composure Levi tried to maintain cracked. “Let’s sit down.” The teen stared hard at Levi before deciding to follow his instruction. Dust lifted into the air as Eren sat on his neglected couch. Levi joined him, mindful of keeping a proper distance. He had no idea how Eren would take the news, what it might mean for him now that he was…different.

“This is going to sound unbelievable. Well, maybe not that unbelievable considering your nightmares.”

Eren flinched. “How do you know about my nightmares?”

“I remember you getting them when you were a kid. I figured you would still have them. I had them too, until I remembered.”

Eren clenched his fists at his sides, debating whether or not to ask and having the sick feeling that his question was the opener to a can of worms. In the end he chose to ask. Another sick feeling told him he would find out eventually whether he wanted to or not. “Remember what?”

For the next hour, Levi recounted their past lives. Everything from the moment he met Eren to the last battle they fought together. He added bits of Eren’s history that he remembered the brunet’s past self telling him, things about his family and life growing up in Shiganshina. He spoke of his past self’s admiration for Eren and how he fought for freedom in a forlorn world.

Eren twitched and shuddered and dropped his mouth open as if to say something before shutting it again to let Levi speak uninterrupted. By the time Levi finished, Eren sat still.

“You’re telling me that everything I’ve dreamed about — my friends and family dying and the people I now call family being the cause — you’re telling me that’s all real? That titans once existed and almost wiped out humanity?”

“Yeeah.” Levi drew the word out slowly, as if the speed at which he spoke could calm the impending storm he expected as Eren’s face shifted from emotion to emotion in time with his racing thoughts. Eren settled on a blank expression, only his eyes revealing the cold hatred burning him from the inside out.

“Leave.”

“…What?”

Eren forcefully stood up, planting his feet firmly on the ground as he jabbed his pointer finger at the front door. “Leave. Right now.”

“Eren, I can help you. Let me—”

“No! Levi, g-get out!” Eren took in a shaky breath, attempting to control himself until Levi left. Levi stumbled up and followed Eren’s finger to the door. His story — their past — was a lot to take in. Eren needed time to accept it.

Eren relocked the door behind Levi. He managed to restrain himself for five minutes, enough time for Levi to be far enough away that he was unlikely to hear as Eren hurled nearby objects against the walls. A lamp’s cord was ripped from its power outlet and the bulb shattered as the lamp made contact with the far side of the hallway. Eren tore the telephone and answering machine from the outlet as well and smashed them against the floor, stomping his foot on the machine for extra effect. Couch pillows were shredded in his bare hands and the fluffy filling scattered on the floor to mark where he stood as he allowed the rage inside him to explode.

He didn’t only have nightmares. Sometimes he had good dreams of faces that were familiar, though not in this life. Why weren’t they with him? Why did his mom have to die again? Why the fuck, after everything he did in his past life, did he get the short stick again? Humanity clearly survived. That made him a hero. And this was the thanks he got? A forceful stomp in the middle of the coffee table split it in two.

Eren removed himself from the mess to pace around his unharmed kitchen but the pacing did nothing to soothe his racing mind which struggled to process the facts — because he knew deep down they were facts — of who he was and is and who everyone around him was and is.

Did he judge people by their past or their present?

Energy expelled and stress wearing his body down further, Eren dropped onto his bed and almost instantly fell asleep. The sounds and sights existing in his head were dull. Colorful, but not HD quality like his dream memories. This was a normal dream crafted from his subconscious.

Men on horseback galloped in front of him, green capes billowing behind them. He ran alongside them, using his advanced height to scout their surroundings and redirect the group whenever he spotted a fellow titan, occasionally rushing ahead to kill a titan in their path to freedom. The sun shone warmly on their backs. Then the sun was obscured by a shadow, a shadow created by a large hand that hovered over the group of soldiers before plucking one off his horse. Drawing the terrified man closer and closer, Eren recognized him as the traitor he tortured yesterday. A feeling of dread filled him. He fought his conscious, wanting to place the man safely back on his horse but his body wouldn’t listen to him. To his surprise, his titan form didn’t eat the man as he feared. Instead, his human body ripped free of his titan and walked down to meet the traitor upon his titan’s hand. Dressed in a plain shirt and jeans, Eren faced the traitor. The man’s face paled and his body shivered. His eyes fell to the wound in his stomach where a knife protruded, its hilt gripped in Eren’s human hand.

Was he judged by his past or present?

What did Levi think of him, knowing how good he once was and how far he’d fallen?

Which was the real him, the selfless past who fought to protect everyone or the selfish present that fought to protect only his small world?

Who was Eren Jaeger?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my life’s blood
> 
> ^^Does that make any sense? It just popped into my head. But yeah, please comment your thoughts on the chapter or the story as a whole, or whatever you want to say. I’d appreciate it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I added the tag “self-harm.” Please take care if this is something that bothers you.

Eren awoke in the early afternoon after a night of dreaming, screaming, crying, rinse and repeat. The effort required to clean the mess he made last night was too much so he left it, grabbing a jacket and leaving the house unlocked behind him.

His path back to the hideout looked exactly as it did two days ago, yet different at the same time. The potholes in the pavement, tear in the metal fence large enough for a small dog, and patches of yellow grass spotting the dirt path up to the abandoned water treatment facility were more than familiar. But it was also like he was seeing them with new eyes. He felt strangely disconnected from his surroundings.

Annie was the first to spot him, no doubt keeping her eye on the direction he always came from. She said nothing, stepping aside as he entered the building, then silently trailed after him as he made his way to the storage room in the basement. Annie watched from the doorway as Eren pocketed two baggies and did not log that he was taking them. When he turned around to leave, Annie spoke to him with her eyes but he refused to listen.

Reiner and Bert spotted him as he walked past the kitchen. Reiner gripped his arm to stop him but Eren rolled with the movement, bringing his fist to Reiner’s cheek.

“That’s for Marco.”

The words had no impact on Reiner and Bert, considering their blank expressions, but Eren heard Annie suck in a breath. Her face was pale and she stared at him, expression a cocktail of shock, regret, guilt, concern…

“Eren, please—”

Eren ran from the building with his stolen goods. He couldn’t look at his siblings, knowing what he knew.

The contents of the baggies in Eren’s jacket pockets shook like maracas as he ran. They covered the sound of footsteps calmly approaching from around the corner of the street, but at Eren’s speed, which never faded since leaving the hideout, he wouldn’t have been able to stop his trajectory to choose another route anyway.

“Aaah!”

Eren collided into two bodies, all three of them toppling upon the sidewalk. He raised himself onto his knees, spotting a baggie that fell out of his pocket beside the darker-haired male he knocked over.

“What the hell, man?”

Eren turned away from the baggie, facing the teens. The one on the left glared angrily until he saw Eren’s face.

“…Eren?”

Eren switched his attention to the darker-haired male.

Tears sprung to Eren’s eyes. “Marco.” Eren reached a hand towards Marco’s cheek, but Jean swatted it away.

“Don’t touch him.”

“Jean,” Marco chided, though Eren noticed he looked relieved that Eren hadn’t touched him.

Eren sat back on his heels, looking at his old friends — in more ways than one. “I’m really happy for you both. You deserve this life. Going to school, eating dinner with your families every night…” Eren cleared his eyes on his sleeve.

“Eren?” Marco stared at him warily.

For a brief moment, Eren contemplated curling into a ball between Marco and Jean, begging for a place to spend the night. But Eren knew if he asked to stay with them while he figured out what to do with his life, they would let him.

Which is why Eren had to leave now, before he was too tempted. Marco and Jean found peace, they didn’t need him bringing his dangerous mistakes into their lives. Eren’s eyes darted to the baggie again, and this time Jean noticed, following his gaze.

“Eren, jesus christ,” Jean whispered.

Marco flinched and squeezed his eyes shut as Eren seemingly lunged at him, reaching around him to snatch the baggie and stuff it back into his pocket. When no hit came, Marco slowly reopened his eyes to see Eren backing away wearing a smile too complicated to decipher.

“Thank you for everything. Please, treasure every day and live happily.”

Jean opened his mouth but his mind couldn’t process what was happening and no words came out. He never found the words, but an unexplainable feeling of deep sorrow pierced his heart and mind as Eren ran off.

Eren ran with no destination in mind, darting under the overhang of an empty bus stop when his legs grew tired and sliding down against the plexiglass wall. With trembling hands, he withdrew one of the baggies and almost ripped it in his haste to open it. Eren shoved his pointer and middle finger inside and coated them in white powder, then rubbed them along his gums, relaxing as his gums went numb. He released a relieved breath that he chose the bags that weren’t tampered with flour, then immediately knocked his head back against the plexiglass in agitation upon realizing he didn’t have snorting papers. Frantically searching his pockets and cursing the time he transferred a loose dollar bill from his jeans to his nightstand, Eren weighed his desperation to escape reality against his better judgement and found a creative solution. The one item Eren always had on him was a switchblade, which he extracted from his back pocket.

Tipping the powder along the edge of his blade, Eren raised it carefully to his nose. The blade nicked a small cut on the skin separating his nostrils as he dragged his nose along its edge, snorting the powder.

For an hour he was embraced by endless green beneath him and cloudless blue around him as he flew with the birds, nothing dangerous to swerve around, neither titans nor bullets. Before them was uninterrupted freedom.

An hour was not enough. Reality crushed him, bringing with it the grey. The grey sidewalk he sat upon, the dark grey road a few feet away from the bus stop he huddled under, and the general grayness that began coating the world the moment he lost his second home.

The thought of living a lie was tempting. He could forget what Reiner, Bert, and Annie had done, what Father Zeke had done, and continue to play his part as the cheeky younger brother, the rising menace of the underworld, primed to kill and command. Only he couldn’t forget. And by now, his siblings must have reported his theft to Father.

It crossed Eren’s mind that he was no different than the thieving traitor he tortured not seventy-two hours ago. Oh, how the tables have turned. Turned on him, crushing him beneath their weight. The magical white powder tickled his nose but thankfully lifted the tables off him, though the green and blue didn’t return. Eren’s blade glinted in the sunlight. Curiously, Eren poked himself in the arm. A pinch. A welling of red, no different than the red Eren cut out of the traitor. They were both filled with red, one and the same.

Eren lazily dragged the switchblade across his arm, steadily digging in deeper until he felt the pinch and saw the red. He wasn’t any different from the traitor. He was also a human filled with life.

It was hard to see his arm clearly through the blur surrounding him. The only thing that stood out in the grey was the red and suddenly there was a lot of red. He misjudged how far away his arm was. Someone whimpered.

Ah, so there were more shades of grey in the world, Eren thought, as he noticed the grey sweater of the woman crouching beside him, concern contorting her face into a look he abhorred. Her lips moved quickly, opening and closing in a funny manner as she spoke into the device against her ear.

To him she said, “I called for an ambulance. I’m going to wrap your arm with my cardigan to stop the bleeding, alright?”

Eren looked down at his arm then lazily smiled up at her as his head lolled back against the bus stop wall. “Don’ worry, it’ll jus’ regenenate.” Eren frowned, sounding the word out slowly. “Regenerate.”

The woman’s hands shook as she wrapped her grey sweater around his arm, obscuring the red. Eren sighed but knew it was inevitable. He closed his heavy eyes, dimly aware of shrill sirens approaching as he escaped from the grey for as long as he could.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait! I had no time during the semester to write and then once summer started, I was hit by crippling writer’s insecurity. I had basically forgotten how to write and hated everything I put down. But I eventually pushed through it and now here we are. Enjoy!

Levi had a gut feeling, he just knew when that call came in from dispatch, that the injured teenager referred to was Eren. Levi thanked whatever entity above was watching over him because he happened to be the closest cop car to the scene. He also happened to be closer than the ambulance, arriving first.

A woman, Levi placed her age in the mid-forties, paced back and forth in front of the bus stop, glancing behind her periodically before returning her gaze to the street, twisting a strand of wavy brown hair between her fingers. Levi parked the car and made it three steps before the woman rushed towards him.

“Thank heavens you’re here.” The woman released a dry sob. Levi continued to walk forward, forcing the woman to walk backwards and speak, wringing her hands, her eyes darting behind her every so often not to watch where she was walking but to check on the body slumped inside the bus stop.

“I was on my way back from the post office when I saw him. Oh god, there was so much blood! I tried to stop the bleeding, but there was so much, so much blood.”

Levi brushed aside the static that occupied his mind since receiving the call from dispatch and focused his attention on the woman, softening his eyes as he connected with her blues.

“Ma’am, you’ve already helped him greatly by calling for an ambulance. Now, I’m going to check on him. Could you please wait over there?” Levi pointed a few feet away and the woman moved in the direction of his finger, releasing a long-held breath.

Assured that the woman was relatively calm and keeping her distance, Levi rushed to Eren’s side, not caring about the dirt and grime that clung to his navy pants as he fell to his knees. Levi grimaced at the pallor of Eren’s skin and the bloodstained sweater wrapped around his arm, but relaxed slightly after pressing two fingers against Eren’s neck and feeling the faint but steady pulse of his carotid artery.

Despite her obvious panic, the woman did an impressive job wrapping the wound tightly to slow the blood flow. Leaning back to appraise Eren fully, Levi’s gaze dropped from the stained sweater to Eren’s side. For how terrible the situation was, Levi couldn’t help but marvel at his luck. The woman had been too preoccupied with stopping the bleeding to pay attention to other details as Levi was able to, such as the monumentally illegal quantity of cocaine on the teen’s person.

He’ll just take those baggies for safe keeping.

The ambulance arrived shortly after and medics rushed to Eren’s side, transferring the unconscious teen onto a gurney and wheeling him into their vehicle. Levi took a statement from the woman before following the ambulance to the hospital.

It was fortunate — though Levi knew it was truly unfortunate — that their city had a reputation for drug selling and abusing, because it meant the doctors hardly batted an eye at the narcotics in Eren’s system. They did insist he stay for a few days because of the cuts on his arm, so Levi called out of work due to family matters, knowing if he didn’t babysit Eren — apparently it was his eternal role —, the brat would escape the hospital within an hour of waking up.

While the doctor oversaw Eren, Levi stepped into the hallway to call Hange.

“Levi? What’s wrong?”

Levi wondered how Hange knew, but the answer came to him quickly. It was rare for him to call instead of text, even more-so in the afternoon while they both were at work.

“I’m at the hospital.”

Levi winced at Hange’s shrill voice, regretting his mindless decision to start the conversation with that fact. In his defense, he was still in shock from finding Eren slouched against a bus stop wall, bleeding from self-administered cuts with bags of cocaine at his side.

“I’m fine, relax. It’s Eren.”

The shrieking on the other end stopped. Levi filled Hange in on the past few days, most importantly how Eren now knew everything about their former lives. Hange interrupted a few times to pull more details from Levi’s factual account but otherwise kept quiet until he finished with the events of the past hour.

“What now?”

Levi didn’t know exactly, and he told Hange so. It wasn’t his life, he had no control over what Eren did next. But as for Levi, his plan remained the same as it always was: to be there for Eren. Hopefully Eren would let him.

  
***

  
When Eren awoke, he found Levi seated on the corner of a white blanketed bed, hands wrapped around his left hand and thumbs stroking the skin on the back of his hand. Eren’s gaze trailed upwards from their hands to his arm, where a nurse applied ointment to his cuts before bandaging them.

He was in a hospital. Great.

“You’re awake.”

Eren rolled his eyes at Levi’s observation. The nurse’s frizzy blonde head lifted from its focus on his arm to stare at him.

“How are you feeling?”

Eren cast his eyes over the nurse briefly then closed them. The nurse waited for a response, following up with another question when no answer was given.

“Are you in any pain?”

“Are you allergic to any medication?”

Eren ignored the questions, to the nurse’s growing frustration. She attached his clipboard to the end of his bed, informing him through clenched teeth that the doctor wanted to keep him for observation for a few days before departing the room with hurried and heavy steps, not quite a stomp but close. Eren fought back the smirk tugging at his lips, thinking about the nurse’s reaction when she found an empty bed tomorrow morning.

“I’ve taken time off from work. Looks like we can finally catch up while you get better. Though this isn’t what I had in mind…”

Eren’s eyes shot open and gripped Levi’s, that fucker. Eren put all his remaining effort into a glare, holding it long enough to show his displeasure, then shuffled to make himself more comfortable in the unforgivingly solid bed. Looks like he’d be in it for a while.

“What, no push back? You’re going to stay in the hospital like a good boy?”

Eren kept silent, letting his eyes shut again and his countenance settle into a blank expression.

“Or,” Levi began with a teasing tone, “maybe you’re playing mind games, making me think you’ll behave so I leave you alone for a half hour while I order us a pizza.”

The corner of Eren’s mouth tipped upwards.

Two slices of pepperoni pizza later, Eren tucked his legs in, making room for Levi to switch from the guest chair to the end of the bed. Just to knock the smile Levi sent him down a notch, he kicked Levi as best he could with his feet trapped under the tightly tucked hospital blanket.

“Alright, I get it. No mushy reunion.” Levi held his hands up in surrender then reached into the pizza box for another slice. Eren contemplated the man in front of him, how little he had changed over the years. Still a giant softie under that serious exterior, still able to read him like a book and brighten his mood, still a comforting presence at his side. Still his older brother in all the ways that counted.

“Tell me about your life.” The words surprised Eren as much as they did Levi, but he hid it, reaching for another slice of pizza himself then leaning against his pillows, looking the picture perfect image of a spoiled boy waiting to be told a bedtime story.

“What do you want to know?” Levi kept his voice carefully light.

Eren waved his pizza-holding hand in a lazy half-circle. “Whatever you would tell me if we ran into each other at Target and were catching up.”

 _Target, huh?_ Levi dropped his head a bit to hide his expression from Eren until he schooled it back into the perfect balance between lighthearted and nonchalant; not too revealing of his eagerness for this time with Eren, but not too artificially emotionless either.

“Hmm,” Levi rubbed his fingers contemplatively along his jaw, making Eren snort at the posing.

“Get on with it,” Eren said with another kick at Levi’s general person. “What was college like?”

“College was…good and bad. Do you remember my friend Hange?” Eren nodded. He had more memories of squad leader Hange than the one in this life, but he remembered Levi bringing them to his house a few times to work on a school project while he babysat.

“Well, one time freshman year, we were headed to our Intro to Management class, when Hange convinced me that we could get there faster if we…”

At some point, while Levi recounted his eventful college life playing sidekick to Hange’s wild ideas, Eren reached between them to lift Levi’s hands. Levi caught on quickly, one palm faced downwards and the other faced upwards, moving in opposite directions to slap gently against Eren’s hands and then flip, continuing in a mindless motion. When Eren tired of the movement but not Levi’s touch, he laced his hands with Levi’s and let them rest in the dwindling space between them.

The blonde, frizzy-haired nurse reappeared to check on Eren, disturbing their small world. With every step the nurse took, cracks splintered the floor, her intrusion shaking apart the sturdy, safe foundation Eren rebuilt, reminding him of where he was and why. Levi and him weren’t two friends catching up. Well, they were, in a manner of speaking. But they were also in a hospital and Eren had stolen cocaine from the mafia he belonged to and then went a little crazy and cut himself and scared the crap out of some poor woman walking by. He managed to wrap all that up and throw it away like garbage, cleaning out his mind and leaving a blank slate, an empty nothingness where nothing could touch him because nothing existed but him and Levi. It was easy to imagine with the white walls of his hospital room. When the nurse entered their space, the garbage flowed back in and it didn’t follow her out.

Levi cleared his throat and Eren braced himself. It was time they stop pretending nothing had changed when the evidence was all around them, in their tired eyes and weathered down grins, in their new knowledge of how to catch a criminal and how to be a criminal. The rubbed raw skin of Eren’s palms from when he foolishly thought he could wash off the blood. He read _Macbeth_ in school, he knew he couldn’t.

“Are these…,” Levi reached for Eren’s hand and brushed his thumb gently against the skin on Eren’s left wrist. “Are these because of me? Because of what I told you?”

Eren’s eyes widened. There were many questions he expected to be asked, questions he was trained how to answer to protect the mafia’s secrets, but this question blindsided him.

“No.” Eren replied quickly, hoping to erase the guilt from Levi’s features.

“This…,” Eren dropped his head slightly, thinking about the answer. “I probably would have done worse if you didn’t tell me what was going on. I felt like I was going crazy. I kept remembering things that never happened, but they felt so real…” _Because they were_ , Eren recalled sorrowfully.

“I wasn’t trying to kill myself.” Eren pressed the truth of his words through their steady eye contact. A minute of silence passed.

Levi’s eyes were flat but deep, like he was somewhere very far away.

“Levi?”

Eren tightened his grip on Levi’s hand, pulling him out of the darkness. Surely their lives now were preferable to the darkness behind them.

Levi blinked and scanned Eren. Eren wished he was a better sight, for Levi’s sake.

Levi inhaled deeply then released it in a whoosh. He smiled softly when he looked at Eren and squeezed his hand before releasing it and standing up. “Want me to see if the nurse’s desk has a pack of cards?”

“Sure,” Eren answered, though Levi was already halfway to the door.

After the door shut behind Levi, Eren flopped backwards onto his pillows. The hospital ceiling was as white as the walls, but composed of large 2x2 tiles pressed together seamlessly. Each tile was connected to the next by near invisible lines, like people connected to each other by invisible threads. Was it chance, in a world burdened by 7.5 billion people, that he grew up in a town with at least ten of the people from his past? Did invisible threads tie them all together?

Eren thought of his siblings and what they were probably doing right now. He knew they wouldn’t want to tattle on him, but considering his imaginary drug problem that could have become true if he hadn’t ended up in the hospital, they might think it best to inform Father that he stole some cocaine. It wouldn’t look good if other members found out, not at all, considering the torture Eren unleashed on a man for also stealing. Hypocrite, they’d call him. Thief, untrustworthy, despicable.

Eren wondered how Father would react to the news. He spent years grooming Eren to take his place some day, years that would go to waste if Eren was killed. Father wouldn’t kill him. No, just like the other man, the punishment for theft was torture not death. Eren messed up when he fried that man’s brain, letting his rage consume him, but his high rank allowed him to get away with it. Whoever administered his punishment wouldn’t have the same privilege.

There was no point thinking about it now, it wasn’t like the mafia would be sent after him. Father would wait for Eren to return, thinking rightfully that he had nowhere else to go, and then administer his punishment. Until Eren was released, this 8 x 12 ft. room was a safe zone.

“What game do you want to play?” Levi dropped the pack of cards in Eren’s lap and returned to his position at the end of the bed, legs folded under him.

Eren knew a few card games but most often played poker, either while lazing about at the base with Reiner or Annie, or with the other men while waiting at the docks for a shipment. But it was Levi who first taught him how to play, on the floor of his living room while their parents prepared the Thanksgiving meal.

“Let’s play poker,” he said with a wolfish grin. “I’ve gotten a lot better at bluffing.”

A laugh burst from Levi which he rolled with. “I have no doubt.”

It was harder to keep a blank face with Levi as his opponent. Eren struggled to keep the smirk off his lips and the twinkle out of his eyes. Levi was the reigning champ of blank expressions but he struggled too, his face reflecting the same unspoken joy for this moment that covered Eren’s.

As the game proceeded the room felt warmer, so Eren slipped his legs out from under the blankets and mimicked Levi’s position, crossing his legs beneath him. In an instant Levi’s cards dropped to the bed, freeing his hands so he could reach across to gently palm over the ugly scars on Eren’s leg.

“Oh.” Eren’s voice betrayed him, coming out small as he looked down at the ugly marred flesh. He cleared his throat, struggling to find the hard shell he developed and relied upon to accept and move forward from everything that happened to him.

“How did you get this?”

Eren shuffled backwards in the bed, tugging his leg out of Levi’s grasp. Levi scooted forward, as if Eren couldn’t already guess that he wouldn’t drop it.

“Rottweiler.”

“What?”

Eren forced his eyes to roll at Levi’s concern. No one but his siblings cared when it happened, and they weren’t allowed to show their concern. Just like he did back then for their comfort, Eren played it off as no big deal.

“It was part of my training. Father wanted to test how I did in difficult situations.” He shrugged his shoulders and erased the tension in his jaw, becoming the embodiment of nonchalance.

“And?” Levi prompted when Eren said no more. “What happened?”

“Father tied to me a metal chair then let the Rottweiler in. He had been starving and beating it for a few days, so it wasn’t happy to see another human.” Eren tried to smirk but failed. “It took a chunk out of my leg before I managed to hit it in the head with the chair. That disoriented it a bit. I used my good leg to stomp on its throat and break its jaw when it tried to bite me again.”

“Fuck.”

Eren did his best to ignore the look Levi gave him, full of concern and pity, instead scooping the fallen cards into a pile, pressing them into a square, and returning them to their box. He set it on his bedside table. When he looked at Levi again, his expression remained the same.

“Stop looking at me like that. You can’t change the past so just forget about it.”

Eren turned on his side and pulled the blankets back over his legs because he was ready to sleep, not for any other reason. Levi rose from the bed, Eren’s message clear. If Eren wasn’t hyper-focused on Levi, he definitely would have missed the softly spoken words:

“No, but I was hoping to change the future.”

The visitors chairs squeaked a bit against Levi’s best efforts to turn them to face each other without a sound. Eren heard Levi settle on the makeshift bed and frowned, imagining how uncomfortable it must be.

Eren rolled over to face the wall and closed his eyes.

  
***

  
Whether it was because he now knew the truth or because Levi was with him, Eren didn’t dream, at least nothing he remembered. It should have put him in a good mood, but instead he lay in bed, moody and sullen, ignoring Levi’s efforts to instigate conversation.

He knew he couldn’t get upset every time Levi stared at him with concern. If the roles were reversed, he would do the same. Objectively, what he had endured in the mafia was terrifying for a teenager, he knew this. All he had to do was compare his life to Jean’s or Marco’s. But recollecting the past, his life could be worse. He could be living in constant fear that his loved ones would be eaten by giant monsters. Luckily for him, the people he loved in this life already died or were living peacefully. Apart from him.

Two more days of observation until the hospital released him back into the world. Levi left twenty minutes ago, trusting him to stay at the hospital while he returned to his apartment to shower, bring them toothbrushes, and pick up edible food, unlike what the hospital served.

Eren considered leaving, but for some reason chose to stay. He spent his momentary solitude reflecting on the past few days and came to understand three things:

First, his current life was different than his past one. He was different. The people he knew were different. But he also knew the past was too vivid for him to forget what Annie, Reiner, and Bert had done. He couldn’t look at them now and separate who they are from who they were, though he desperately wished he could.

Second, it was hypocritical for him to not forgive Annie, Reiner, and Bert for their past when he didn’t deserve to be forgiven for his present. His siblings had rough childhoods, arguably rougher than his, and they didn’t grow up to be ruthless killers like he did. Yet despite him being a monster, they stood by him. No matter the bad decisions he made or the gruesome actions he took, he was part of their family. Considering their unwavering loyalty to family did not absolve them of blame for breaking the walls and killing people he loved, but it did afford them some forgiveness.

Honestly, with time to adjust to all the new (old) memories buried in his head, Eren knew he could look past who they used to be. There were far more good memories of time he spent with them now to override the past. The grudge he held was more a byproduct of his own self-hatred, hating himself for who he became, how he went from being an innocent child looking up at the stars to a murderer looking down at blood-stained hands. Every time he looked at his siblings he would see a mirror image of the past, this time with him being the one farther on the wrong side of the moral compass. Holding on to the past, layering those actions over who his siblings were now, was merely a way to lessen his own self-hatred.

Lastly, if it weren’t for his siblings finding him in that snowdrift and his father giving him a purpose and place to belong, he wouldn’t have survived this long. Now he was back to having nothing and nowhere to go.

Eren carried these insights with him all day. He tucked them away when Levi returned, not out of mind but enough so that he could focus on playing Connect Four.

“This game is stupid.” Levi pushed his bottom lip out in a childish pout.

“You’re stupid.”

Eren laughed into the pillow thrown in his face. “How can you suck this badly? This game is strategy and luck. 99% of the time it ends in a stalemate.”

Levi stared at the vertical and diagonal lines of three red tokens each and hovered his black token above them. Levi released a dramatic sigh then dropped his token above the vertical line.

“At least if I prevent the more obvious connection, I’ll feel better about losing.”

“You’re purposely losing,” Eren replied with no sympathy.

“I’m not!” Levi raised his hands in the air in defense and Eren fixed him with a disbelieving stare.

“Okay, maybe I’m not trying very hard to win, but I’m not purposely losing.”

“Ha!” Eren wriggled in his spot. “You always let me win when I was a kid.”

“I did no such thing.” Levi released the hatch at the bottom of the game and let the tokens plummet onto the bed. Before he could set up a new game, Eren gathered the tokens and dumped them into the game’s box. Winning ten times in a row quickly became boring.

“Want to see if any good movies are playing?” Eren shuffled backwards until he was supported by the wall and pointedly moved to one side of the bed.

“Sure.” Levi grabbed the remote off the bedside table. He passed it to Eren, leaving the decision-making up to him as he positioned himself beside Eren on the bed. The bed was narrow, too narrow for a broad-shouldered young cop and seventeen-year-old boy, but they made it work. Levi wrapped his arm around Eren’s shoulders and Eren pressed close against Levi’s side like he used to as a kid.

Tomorrow Eren would be released from the hospital and his life would resume. He accepted this. For now, in the safe, small, white hospital room, Eren dropped his head on Levi’s chest and focused on the movie playing on the small television hanging from the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this chapter or story at all, please leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts.


	11. Chapter 11

Levi rocked Eren’s shoulder back and forth until the teen woke up. Eren was being discharged from the hospital today and Levi needed to talk to him about what happened next. He waited while Eren dressed in the bloodied clothes he arrived to the hospital in and waited some more as Eren turned on the television and ate the bagel Levi bought from the hospital cafeteria.

“Eren.”

“Mhm.”

When Levi said no more, Eren diverted his attention from the television to the male sitting on the edge of his bed, hunched over with his forearms resting on his knees, fingers tightly intertwined and turning white.

“…What?”

“How do you feel about,” Levi lifted his gaze to stare directly at Eren, “leaving this city?”

Eren entertained the possibility moments before falling asleep last night. He didn’t want to — he couldn’t — stay here. If he returned to the mafia, the violence and death he dealt every day would drive him more to the tipping point. He would continue to live his life as a harbinger of death until the guilt from all the wrongs he committed consumed him. Unlike the cuts on his arms, there was no chance of survival from a gunshot to the head. And he couldn’t stay in this city and not return to the mafia. Father wouldn’t let him leave, not after all the time spent grooming him.

Prompted by the lack of an immediate refusal, Levi continued to build his case, his voice speeding up as he planned it out.

“We can move far away from here, the other side of the globe if that’s what it takes to keep you safe. It’ll be a fresh start. You can finish high school and I’ll work at another station. What do you say?”

Levi saw a multitude of emotions pass through Eren’s eyes. The most identifiable was hope and desire followed by doubt and fear, then an emotion Levi couldn’t recognize. He had seen this emotion countless times in memories but never on Eren, so he didn’t identify it until hours later.

After processing Levi’s words, Eren’s lips tipped up and he nodded once. 

“Sure. That,” Eren tilted his head down, long brown locks obscuring his eyes and leaving only the gentle smile on his face visible, “that would be really nice.”

“A fresh start,” Eren chuckled to himself, repeating Levi’s earlier words and finding humor in the inception of a fresh start within a fresh start.

“Maybe I’ll try out for the soccer team at my new school, put my energy into something...” — normal, non-violent, safe — “else. And I’ll get a boring job at a coffee shop. Can you picture that? Ha! If Reiner saw me, he’d…”

Eren’s fists clenched around the bedsheets. He breathed in deeply then let it out slow, unfurling his fists as he exhaled.

“Maybe I’ll get a therapist too,” Eren mused.

“Everything will be fine from now on,” Levi promised, patting Eren on the shoulder. “We’ll take care of each other, like always.”

Levi knew it wouldn’t be as easy as he made it sound — hiding from the mafia was not an easy task — but no matter how difficult it would be, he would protect Eren if it was the last thing he did. From the worried, warning glance Eren gave him, he knew it too.

The door swung open without warning and the blonde nurse moved quickly to grab the clipboard at the end of Eren’s bed. She asked Levi to follow her to sign the release papers and avoided making eye-contact with Eren. Eren smirked and Levi cast him a warning glance before following the nurse.

Levi nervously anticipated the hospital bills, but the nurse informed him Dr. Jaeger would be notified and billed. His other concern was whether Eren would be allowed to leave with him, but since Eren’s guardian was abroad and Levi was the policeman who brought him in, he was allowed to sign the release forms and take Eren into his care.

Levi returned to Eren’s room and leaned against the doorway, watching Eren stare at his clasped hands deep in thought. “You ready, brat?”

The familiar nickname brought a smile to Eren’s face before it faded away, replaced by a purposeful manner. “There are a few things I need to do before leaving the city.”

“Of course. It will take me a couple days to sell—”

“They need to be done today.”

Levi raised his eyebrow and Eren had the decency to look apologetic for cutting him off, adding a small but forceful “please.”

Levi shrugged his shoulder and waved Eren out of the room. “Fine, let’s go.”

Levi led Eren to his car, a small silver Hyundai. He was glad he was able to return the police car to the station and retrieve his own car yesterday on his way to his apartment. Levi wanted Eren to feel comfortable, and driving around in a cop car, even though he was sitting in the passenger seat, was unlikely to put Eren at ease.

“Where to?” Levi asked, buckling his seatbelt and checking that Eren buckled his too before turning the key in the ignition.

“My house first.” 

Eren wrapped his hand around the seatbelt across his chest and gazed out his window as Levi drove down Fairview’s familiar streets. There was his elementary school, where he cried on the first day because he didn’t want his mother to leave him. The library where he once worked on a history project with Jean until they were kicked out for arguing too loudly. The spot where he fell off his bike and scraped his knee because he swerved to avoid a squirrel. The park where he used to play as a kid. His house.

Levi stumbled to a pause beside the entryway to the living room but Eren passed by the destruction without a sideways glance. Levi scanned what once was the living room and felt like he was looking at one of those I Spy pictures, a room filled with assorted objects and his job was to find the listed few. There was the cotton filling that once stuffed the shredded couch pillows. And at the base of the wall across from him was a dented lamp, surrounded by the shattered remains of a lightbulb. The coffee table was easy to spot, snapped in two in the middle of the room.

Levi turned away from the wreckage, the wrecked memories of afternoons spent lying on their stomachs on those pillows with him humoring a young Eren by playing with toy cars, zipping them around the legs of the coffee table and racing off the top.

The door to Eren’s bedroom was ajar and Levi could see Eren seated at his desk, notebook paper laid out in front of him and pen gripped tightly in his hand. 

Speaking around the pen cap in his mouth, Eren asked, “Can you see what non-perishable food is in the cupboards?”

“Sure.”

Levi gave Eren his privacy and entered the too familiar kitchen where he once cooked meals a few nights a week. Opening the corner cabinet and spinning the lazy susan, Levi withdrew two boxes of granola bars and an opened box of Cocoa Puffs cereal. He set them on the kitchen counter then pulled open the snack drawer. It used to burst with chips, applesauce, store-bought cookies, and pudding cups; now it held beef jerky and a stale bag of pretzels. Levi tossed the pretzels into the trash and added the jerky to the pile on the counter.

Levi leaned against Eren’s doorway. “You don’t have much food.” 

Eren grunted in response, shoving a sweatshirt into the duffle bag on his bed. At some point he had changed out of his bloody clothes. Eren stuffed his pillow and blanket into the bursting bag then stepped past Levi to toss the gathered food into the side pockets.

“Do you want any of your furniture? I can rent a van to pick it up later.”

“No, that’s…that’s okay.”

Levi frowned. “You’re not sleeping on the couch. We’ll get you a bed.”

Eren shrugged, not concerned in the slightest. “We can get me a bed once we move.”

Levi let the subject drop since Eren had a point. Depending on how far away they moved, it might be simpler to buy completely new furniture.

“Anything else you need?”

“Uh,” Eren looked around his room, checking that he hadn’t forgotten anything, then moved down the hall to his parent’s bedroom, rifling through the drawers. He found a roll of cash, about $300, and shoved it deep in his back pocket.

Though Levi said it was unnecessary, Eren insisted he needed as much money as he could get, so the next errand was to the bank, where he withdrew the $8137.29 in his account. At the CVS across the street, Eren bought a wallet with a long strap. He stuffed all his money inside and hung it around his neck, tucking it beneath his shirt out of sight. Levi wondered if Dr. Jaeger would hunt Eren down for taking the money, but if he did, that was a problem for another day.

Levi kept silent on the drive to their third location, content listening to Eren chatter about the nice house they would buy with its white picket fence surrounding the front yard. The fence was necessary, Eren explained, to protect their husky puppy as it ran around chasing after frisbees. Eren said he wanted to name it Titan and Levi didn’t know how to respond to that so he did what felt natural and laughed.

The post office was a short stop. Eren spun the combination to his PO box and delicately placed three envelopes inside. Levi pretended not to see the names written on them.

As he followed Eren’s instructions to their last stop, Levi pressed his lips firmly together. Eren unpeeled one of Levi’s clenched fists off the steering wheel and held it as they drove, continuing to verbalize their peaceful, perfect future the whole ride there. Levi didn’t call him out; he endured the painful squeezing of his heart and kept driving until they reached the destination.

Eren told Levi to wait for him on a nearby bench while he approached the ticket counter. Levi knew Eren could see the heartbreak in his eyes but he could just as well see the resolution in Eren’s, along with that unfamiliar emotion from that morning in the hospital. It finally clicked into place what that emotion was. 

Resignation.

“So. This is the end.”

Levi didn’t know what face to make at Eren as the teen laughed so he stared at him blankly.

Laughter under control, Eren said, “No, Levi. This is the beginning.”

Levi corrected his earlier assessment. That emotion was not simply Eren’s resignation to his fate. No, it was intertwined with hope. It was an acceptance of everything that had happened and he had done fused with the willpower to keep fighting and move forward.

Bus 845 pulled up to the station and opened its doors. Eren grabbed his giant duffle and stood up.

“Well, I—”

“I’ll wait for you here. This is the last errand you have, right?”

Eren smiled softly and fought against the prickling behind his eyes. “Right. I’ll be back soon.”

Eren hefted his bag over his shoulder and filed onto the bus behind the other few passengers. He took a window seat against his better judgement and held eye contact with Levi until the bus pulled away from the station. Levi waited until the bus was completely out of sight before he returned to his uncomfortably quiet car and drove home.

Levi sat in the parking lot for a bit, hands still resting on the steering wheel, and marveled at how empty his brain was. Contrary to his expectations, he wasn’t itching to return to the bus station and demand to know where bus 845 was headed. He spent more than a year waiting for Eren; he could wait a little longer.

As Levi twisted to undo his seatbelt, he spotted the white envelope on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Flipping it over, he saw it was addressed to him. Levi pocketed the envelope and waited until he was settled inside his apartment to slit it open. The notebook paper was mostly empty, only seven words written in a messy scrawl at the top of the page.

_It’s not your job to save me._

Levi’s face cycled through a few expressions before he laughed heartily, borderline hysterically. Because Eren wrote it, Levi couldn’t decide whether he was meant to read it as a rebuke or a comfort. He decided it was probably meant to be both.

Eren was right, that brat. Levi could take care of him, care for him, but he couldn’t save him. Only Eren could do that.

Well, it was nothing new for him to put his hope in Eren.


	12. Epilogue

**14 Months Later**

Levi startled awake to the obnoxious beeping of his alarm clock. Seeing he was awake, the body in bed next to him started leaving kisses all across his face. Levi had to get ready for work so he placed one kiss on their head before lightly pushing them away and dragging his tired body to the shower.

They were still lying on his bed when he returned so he tapped them on the rear. Titan stared at him with intelligent, playful blue eyes, letting him know it was pointless to make the bed because it would be a mess when he returned home anyway. Levi sighed, knowing this to be true, but still shoved the husky off the bed.

He scratched behind Titan’s ear as he ate a bowl of cereal and promised the dog a run when he returned from work, praying the promise of exercise would get the hyperactive dog to contain its energy until he came home. It would be nice to return to a clean house for once.

Levi sighed when he entered the police station; the excitement and workload from last week had yet to die down. After years of evading the cops, the mafia in Fairview had finally been caught. Levi read all about it in the paper; a massive shootout took place in the next state over, down by the docks, as the mafia waited for a shipment.

Some of the men were from Massachusetts and were processed at Whitebridge police station, the station responsible for catching them, but since the rest originated in Fairview, they were sent back to Connecticut where they were being detained until trial.

Before being shipped in heavily armed vehicles to a remand prison, it was Levi’s, as well as the other members of his teams responsibility, to book the criminals, take their finger prints, and enter the charges into the police record.

Three familiar faces were not among the arrested.

Moments after Levi sat at his desk, Chief Anderson’s door opened and he stuck his head out.

“Officer Ackerman, I need you in my office.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chief Anderson was a tall, broad-shouldered man with peppered brown hair and a Jekyll and Hyde personality. When it was necessary, he was the no-nonsense Chief of Police, and when there was nothing to worry about it, he was the laid-back boss bringing his wife’s cookies in to share. A good man to work under. 

Levi entered the office and greeted the Chief, allowing his attention to briefly swerve over the other cop in the corner before fixing his attention to his Chief as he spoke.

“Officer Ackerman, I would like to introduce you to one of the cops from the Whitebridge police force. He received high marks during his time at the police academy and is largely responsible for the drug bust of the Fairview mafia, which is why he is being transferred here to help handle the bookings and paperwork.”

Chief Anderson stepped aside as the young cop stepped forward and extended his hand, his rakish grin growing ever wider as Levi’s jaw fell closer to the floor.

“My name is Eren Jaeger. I look forward to working with you, sir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOO BOY. This is finally finished. I’m honestly surprised we made it.
> 
> First off, thank you to everyone who left a comment or kudos. I never would have finished this story if not for the continued interest. And thank you to the readers who asked me to write more for this one-shot. Can you believe this was originally a one-shot?! I had a lot of fun writing Eren’s character (sometimes you need a break from fluff, ya know?) and getting in the heads of the characters.
> 
> Also, if you can say it kindly, can you share with me your thoughts on the ending so I can improve my writing? I struggled to think of an ending that fit the direction the previous chapters led up to, and although I think I chose the best ending from the possibilities I thought of, how do you as the reader feel? Were you disappointed or pleased?
> 
> Lastly, I considered writing a spin-off about what Eren did in the 14 month interim but since it took me flipping forever to finish this story, and I still have other projects I’m working on, it will be much quicker to outline what happened instead.
> 
> So: Eren hops onto a bus for MA and has no idea how to turn his life around until he runs into Dot Pixis, who works at the police academy and convinces Eren to apply. Pixis vouches for him and Eren’s street-fighting/mafia skills give him a leg-up against his older classmates. After graduating in the top whatever % of his class, he joins the Whitebridge police force and does undercover work taking down small gangs until he proves himself enough to be placed on the team handling the mafia. Cue epic battle between Eren and Zeke at the docks. Eren wins, the mafia is arrested, and Eren is a hero. He requests/it just makes sense for him to be transferred to Fairview where he works alongside Levi and they move in together and Eren loves his husky puppy.
> 
> As for Annie, Reiner, and Bert, they find the letters Eren left them at their shared PO box. Eren apologizes for how things ended (only Annie understands the part about forgiveness) and promises to return one day. Father can tell they know nothing about Eren’s whereabouts so he doesn’t do anything to them, and when Eren kills Zeke at the docks, Annie, Reiner, and Bert are finally safe to flee. They find real jobs and reconnect with Eren another year down the line. Yay happy endings for everyone! Also Jean has a heart attack the first time he sees Eren patrolling the streets in a cop uniform. They grab coffee with Marco and though Marco never remembers, Jean sometimes has vague recollections or only recalls emotions and he and Eren become good, bantery friends again. The end.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this! Comments and kudos are highly appreciated :)


End file.
